UVV status
Christopher Stone
Has anyone determined what has happened to Ron Dippold yet?
--
////// // // ////// // ////// Christopher B. Stone
// ////// ///// // ///
// // // // // // /// "Consensus is the negation
////// // // // // // ////// of leadership." -Margaret Thatcher
Mary Palmer
had been in charge of my CFV (misc.business.facilitators)
and that I would know what happened Monday when Ron
was back on the job. As to whether another vote will
be called depends on whether the group passed or not.
Because no 2nd CFV was posted, if the group didn't
pass, the CFV will be reissued. I do believe they are
doing what they can to correct the problems and get
the voting process back on track.
If your CFV was under Ron's control, you will just have
to wait until Monday--which is only a weekend away--to
find out its status.
Mary Margaret
Tom Galloway
Mary Palmer <palmer...@lanl.gov> wrote:
>Because no 2nd CFV was posted, if the group didn't pass, the CFV will be
>reissued.
I have a problem with this. This effectively provides intermediate information
about the vote result; i.e. if a CFV is reissued, it will be known that it's
failing. I'd urge the UVV to, if at all possible, be consistent across the
board about reissuing CFVs. Personally, I'd argue for reissuing all such,
but I do understand that this would add to the heavy UVV backlog. However, I
think the lack of intermediate result information is a cornerstone of the
Guidelines.
George Herbert
>>Because no 2nd CFV was posted, if the group didn't pass, the CFV will be
>>reissued.
>
>I have a problem with this. This effectively provides intermediate information
>about the vote result; i.e. if a CFV is reissued, it will be known that it's
>failing. I'd urge the UVV to, if at all possible, be consistent across the
>board about reissuing CFVs. Personally, I'd argue for reissuing all such,
>but I do understand that this would add to the heavy UVV backlog. However, I
>think the lack of intermediate result information is a cornerstone of the
>Guidelines.
There is some confusion about this which I'd like to clear up.
I believe this is the consensus of Tale, group-advice, and UVV,
though any of those are welcome to correct me if I am wrong.
The results of the votes which Ron were personally running will
not be adjusted, nor their voting period changed, etc.
They concluded on Feb 13th, and the results as of that date stand.
We don't know what they were yet, but will find out upon Ron's return.
Those votes are history.
There were some potential flaws in the voting process for those groups.
Beyond the obvious delay in the reporting of the results, it appears
that they didn't have second CFVs issued, so voter turnout might be
artificially low. This would be unfair to proposals.
After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
flawed lack of second CFV. This sort of "for-cause" overturn
of the vote results but not the ballot allows an "instant revote";
a UVV member will be assigned to start the vote again, and this
time make sure it gets the second CFV and such. We should know
the results shortly after Monday the 27th.
So in summary, there will be no alterations to the vote results for
the votes in question. If they failed because of the lack of second
CFV, we will assume that it's our fault and run the vote over again.
There will be no delay (beyond getting a UVV member lined up).
Btw, here's the list of known groups which Ron was running votes for
(and the ballot periods):
comp.ai.games 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.c++.leda 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.c.moderated moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.clipper 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.text.pdf 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.graphics.packages.3dstudio 23 Jan 13 Feb
misc.business.facilitators 23 Jan 13 Feb
rec.music.artists.beach-boys 23 Jan 13 Feb
sci.engr.geomechanics 23 Jan 13 Feb
sci.med.pathology 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.estonia moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.jewish.singles 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.kurdish 23 Jan 13 Feb
talk.catastrophism moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
george william herbert KD6WUQ | gher...@crl.com | Unix/Internet Consultant
(temporary) UVV coordinator
Tom Galloway
>In article <3ij6bm$g...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> t...@gip.eecs.umich.edu (Tom Galloway) writes:
>After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
>found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
>the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
>flawed lack of second CFV. This sort of "for-cause" overturn
Just to be sure this is clear, could you answer the following?
If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it
revotes?
If the vote does have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
(it seems clear that if it passes by both criteria, it passes with no revote).
Just not quite clear on what the standard of a vote failing due to lack of
2nd CFV is.
Also, just to be sure, the revote is completely from start?
Una Smith
>>Because no 2nd CFV was posted, if the group didn't pass, the CFV will be
>>reissued.
t...@gip.eecs.umich.edu (Tom Galloway) writes:
>... This effectively provides intermediate information about the vote
>result; i.e. if a CFV is reissued, it will be known that it's failing.
If the proposal did not get a 2nd CFV, and did not pass, the entire
vote will be run over again from the start, if the proponent wishes.
This gives the proponent a slight advantage, similar to trying again
after six months. If a proposal may have failed due to the lack of
the usual 2nd CFV, it would not be fair to the proponent to make the
proposal wait for six months.
--
Una Smith una....@yale.edu
Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8104 USA
George Herbert
>In article <3ijdbg$6...@crl3.crl.com>, George Herbert <gher...@crl.com> wrote:
>>In article <3ij6bm$g...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> t...@gip.eecs.umich.edu (Tom Galloway) writes:
>>After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
>>found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
>>the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
>>flawed lack of second CFV. This sort of "for-cause" overturn
>
>Just to be sure this is clear, could you answer the following?
>If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
Yes, presumably with more advertising this would pass.
>If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it
>revotes?
If it couldn't get 2/3 support in the first few votes, then it
probably wouldn't in a revote. There is some discussion about
this case within UVV but at this point the consensus is no.
>If the vote does have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
No, this would generally only happen in a case like 550 to 400 y/n,
which if that ratio kept up wouldn't have 2/3ds in a revote.
>(it seems clear that if it passes by both criteria, it passes with no revote).
>Just not quite clear on what the standard of a vote failing due to lack of
>2nd CFV is.
I hope this clears the situation up.
>Also, just to be sure, the revote is completely from start?
We would post a new CFV, all the votes from the first CFV would
be thrown out, the new one would start from scratch.
It would _not_ be an extension to voting period for the
existing vote.
Jonathan Grobe
>In article <3ijisr$k...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> t...@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Tom Galloway) writes:
>>Just to be sure this is clear, could you answer the following?
>
>>If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
>
>Yes, presumably with more advertising this would pass.
>
>>If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it
>>revotes?
>
>If it couldn't get 2/3 support in the first few votes, then it
>probably wouldn't in a revote. There is some discussion about
>this case within UVV but at this point the consensus is no.
>
>>If the vote does have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
>
>No, this would generally only happen in a case like 550 to 400 y/n,
>which if that ratio kept up wouldn't have 2/3ds in a revote.
>
>>(it seems clear that if it passes by both criteria, it passes with no revote).
>>Just not quite clear on what the standard of a vote failing due to lack of
>>2nd CFV is.
>
I disagree. I think all proposals which fail should have the opportunity
for a second immediate revote. When you use phrases like "it probably
wouldn't in a revote" that means it possibly would in a revote; or "if
that ratio kept up" there is a possibility that the ratio could change.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Grobe gr...@ins.infonet.net
John Stanley
>Beyond the obvious delay in the reporting of the results, it appears
>that they didn't have second CFVs issued, so voter turnout might be
>artificially low. This would be unfair to proposals.
Excuse me? "Potential flaw?" Have the guidelines been changed to mandate
a second CFV? The last I recall, the guidelines say a second CFV MAY be
posted, but MAY is not MUST.
>After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
>found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
>the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
>flawed lack of second CFV.
No, the vote will have failed for lack of support. There is no
requirement for second CFV, and people who don't vote until they see
the second CFV will have cooked their own gooses by procrastinating. If
they don't vote when the first one comes out, too bad.
Now, you may argue that "maybe the first one was lost, so a second one
would have been all they saw. It isn't fair..." Ok. "The first and
second one may be lost, so all they would see is a third one. It isn't
fair..."
>This sort of "for-cause" overturn
>of the vote results but not the ballot allows an "instant revote";
"For cause" overturns merit this; failure for lack of support does not.
>If they failed because of the lack of second CFV,
How do you tell the dfifference between those that failed because an
optional second CFV wasn't issued and those that didn't have support?
And what happens next time when a group fails for lack of support and
proponents demand an immediate revote because an optional third CFV
wasn't posted?
No, I don't agree with this. Groups where there was something seriously
wrong in the vote process deserve a revote. Groups that failed for lack
of support do not.
Dick Wisan
> In article <3ijdbg$6...@crl3.crl.com>, George Herbert <gher...@crl.com> wrote:
>>There were some potential flaws in the voting process for those groups.
>>Beyond the obvious delay in the reporting of the results, it appears
>>that they didn't have second CFVs issued, so voter turnout might be
>>artificially low. This would be unfair to proposals.
>
> Excuse me? "Potential flaw?" Have the guidelines been changed to mandate
> a second CFV? The last I recall, the guidelines say a second CFV MAY be
> posted, but MAY is not MUST.
>
>>After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
>>found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
>>the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
>>flawed lack of second CFV.
>
> No, the vote will have failed for lack of support. There is no
> requirement for second CFV, and people who don't vote until they see
Has it, in fact, _been_ the custom to put out a second CFV whenever the
first CFV brought in too few responses?
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan - Email: internet WIS...@hartwick.edu
- Snail: 37 Clinton Street, Oneonta NY 13820, U.S.A.
- Just your opinion, please, ma'am: No fax.
Dan Thies
: In article <3ijdbg$6...@crl3.crl.com>, George Herbert <gher...@crl.com> wrote:
: >There were some potential flaws in the voting process for those groups.
: >Beyond the obvious delay in the reporting of the results, it appears
: >that they didn't have second CFVs issued, so voter turnout might be
: >artificially low. This would be unfair to proposals.
: Excuse me? "Potential flaw?" Have the guidelines been changed to mandate
: a second CFV? The last I recall, the guidelines say a second CFV MAY be
: posted, but MAY is not MUST.
Well, Ron made a firm commitment that a second CFV definitely would be
posted. Since there is no choice but to use the UVV, I don't see why a
seconf CFV should be considered optional. It's not as if the proponents
have any control over whether or not a second CFV is issued. The whole
thing is entirely in the hands of the UVV, and Ron Dippold, for whatever
reason, failed to meet his commitment to post it. I consider that to be
a flaw in the voting process.
: >After we discover the results of Ron's votes, if any of them are
: >found to have failed due to low turnout, it has been agreed that
: >the vote in question will be judged to have failed due to the
: >flawed lack of second CFV.
: No, the vote will have failed for lack of support. There is no
: requirement for second CFV, and people who don't vote until they see
: the second CFV will have cooked their own gooses by procrastinating. If
: they don't vote when the first one comes out, too bad.
So if a vote is 100-1 in favor of a group, and the second CFV was never
issued, you'd say it's a lack of support. Some people don't vote until
the second CFV because they never saw the first one. You may live at
your terminal, but some people take vacations, etc.
: Now, you may argue that "maybe the first one was lost, so a second one
: would have been all they saw. It isn't fair..." Ok. "The first and
: second one may be lost, so all they would see is a third one. It isn't
: fair..."
Well, you can take anything to extremes, but this isn't what they're
doing. The response from the other UVV volunteers has been measured and
reasonable. Was there a particular group on that list that you opposed?
: How do you tell the dfifference between those that failed because an
: optional second CFV wasn't issued and those that didn't have support?
That was stated already, fairly clearly.
: No, I don't agree with this. Groups where there was something seriously
: wrong in the vote process deserve a revote. Groups that failed for lack
: of support do not.
There was something seriously wrong in the vote process. Ron Dippold
promised a second CFV and didn't deliver. If I had been able to choose
another vote-taker that would issue a CFV, I would have. No choice
available for proponents here, though. UVV has a monopoly on the voting,
and I'm just glad we don't have such a heavy-handed approach from them as
we'd get from you.
Dan
--
rt...@cyberspace.com
Christopher Stone
I was under the impression that the results of several votes conducted by
Ron Dippold were to be posted on news.announce.newgroups on Monday,
February 28th. I have not seen the results; is there another delay, or
was the original assumption incorrect?
George Herbert
Last week I contacted the HR department at Qualcomm (after not being able
to get through directly to Ron). I was told at that time that Ron was
expected to return on Monday the 27th.
Nothing has yet been heard from him. The status of the votes he was running
is still up in the air. As I have stated before, if need be UVV will have
someone else take over the vote and do a revote. There are 13 or so
affected votes, though, and it will take some time to do that if we
have to. Combined with the existing backlog, we'd prefer to wait a bit
more and see if Ron returns rather than have to revote them all.
Proponents of the following groups (which are the ones Ron was running)
can contact me directly if they have strong feelings about how long to
wait before declaring the previous vote invalid and starting a new one.
Keep in mind that you're looking at a 3-week delay if we do that,
and an unknown delay until Ron returns if we just sit and wait.
Group Vote Period From To
=============================================================================
comp.ai.games 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.c++.leda 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.c.moderated moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.lang.clipper 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.text.pdf 23 Jan 13 Feb
comp.graphics.packages.3dstudio 23 Jan 13 Feb
misc.business.facilitators 23 Jan 13 Feb
rec.music.artists.beach-boys 23 Jan 13 Feb
sci.engr.geomechanics 23 Jan 13 Feb
sci.med.pathology 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.estonia moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.jewish.singles 23 Jan 13 Feb
soc.culture.kurdish 23 Jan 13 Feb
talk.catastrophism moderated 23 Jan 13 Feb
george william herbert KD6WUQ | gher...@crl.com | Unix/Internet Consultant
(temporary) UVV coordinator
Henry van Cleef
Here in Texas, Monday was Feb. 27.
However, here in Texas, as I write this, it is now Thursday March 2, and
we haven't seen a thing here about the Dippold and the UVV situation.
The whole situation appears to be one of complete collapse. I take it
that the situation is so bad in Princeton that it is already March 3.
--
===================================================================
Hank van Cleef The Union Institute History of Science
E-mail vanc...@netcom.com or vanc...@tmn.com
===================================================================
Mike Chapman
represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
will have a good explanation when he gets back.
--
Citizen Chapman, Esq.
Sic Semper Tyrannis Live Free or Die! Don't tread on me!
Una Smith
>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this.
>It represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
thanks.
For the current lapse of attention to his UVV chores, Ron Dippold
has received insulting and inconsiderate complaints and a general
lack of sympathy, or even tolerance from some (not all) readers of
news.groups.
Shame on you.
Dan Thies
: Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this. It
: represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
: will have a good explanation when he gets back.
I think the other UVV volunteers are working on how to prevent this from
happening again. Ron Dippold has run hundreds of votes, without such
problems. I don't think he'd drop the ball all of a sudden without a
good reason. Personally, I hope he is OK.
Dan
--
rt...@cyberspace.com
Matt Austern
> >Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this.
> >It represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
> >will have a good explanation when he gets back.
>
> For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
> service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
> work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
> thanks.
>
> For the current lapse of attention to his UVV chores, Ron Dippold
> has received insulting and inconsiderate complaints and a general
> lack of sympathy, or even tolerance from some (not all) readers of
> news.groups.
>
> Shame on you.
Agreed. And one more point: talking about "removing" Ron from his
"position" is a bit silly. His "position" is quite simple: he has
volunteered (remember what UVV stands for?) to count votes. Nobody
appointed him, nobody can remove him, nobody has to listen to him if
they don't want to. If anyone else chooses to volunteer to count
votes, that's fine too.
Personally, I'm not volunteering. I counted the votes for one
newgroup creation proposal (sci.physics.research), and that was
enough.
--
--matt
Christina Schulman
>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this. It
>represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
Yeah, and if he doesn't, let's dock his pay! (Sheesh.)
Anyone think that maybe Ron Dippold's disappearance is related in some
sordid way to the reappearance of Kent Paul Dolan? Paranoid minds
want to know.
--
Christina Schulman schu...@pitt.edu
Eric Jaron Stieglitz
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this. It
>represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
I don't think there is any "clearly" about it. Before you jump the
gun and demand the guy's resignation why not give him a chance to come
to his own defense first.
Obviously, if it can be shown that this whole mess was due to
ireresponsibility then some action should be taken, but why not give him
a chance to explain himself first? He's done quite a bit of good
for the net.
On another note, this whole mess wouldn't have happened if the voting
process hadn't been so centralized. Judging from their posts, it looks
like the UVV is making the good move of attempting to decentralize the
process.
--
Eric Jaron Stieglitz eph...@ctr.columbia.edu
Home: (212) 853-6771 Assistant Systems Manager at the
Work: (212) 854-6020 Center for Telecommunications Research
Fax : (212) 854-2497 http://www.ctr.columbia.edu/people/Eric.html
I Am Just A Monkey Glenn
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this. It
>represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
Clearly you're just experiencing another miocranial infarction.
Clearly you need to be removed from your position of most annoying
newbie net presence. It represents an incredible level of pretzel
logic. Perhaps you will gain a clue before we all die of old age.
The more rational among us will surely recognize that he's voluntarily
run hundreds of votes and freely given Usenet years of his work, and
realize that we should hear the man out before deciding what his
absence represents. I for one just hope that's he's alright.
Pax ex machina,
Glenn
......................................................................
"Holy Geez! Belial's Butt, and it's headed our way!"
--- The Demon
g-car...@uchicago.edu, if you must know
<A HREF="http://www.digimark.net/wraith/">Phone Homey the Page!</A>
......................................................................
Mike Chapman
Una Smith <una....@yale.edu> wrote:
>mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) writes:
>
>>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this.
>>It represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
>
>For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
>service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
>work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
>thanks.
Send him a card. Tell me where to send a check so we can send
him some flowers. Maybe he'll need flowers for whatever
reason he's just disappeared.
>For the current lapse of attention to his UVV chores, Ron Dippold
>has received insulting and inconsiderate complaints and a general
>lack of sympathy, or even tolerance from some (not all) readers of
>news.groups.
This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
needs a serious overhaul.
>Shame on you.
Well damnation on you!
>[...] University, New Haven, CT 06520-8104 USA
I'm so sorry.
Dan Thies
: Has it, in fact, _been_ the custom to put out a second CFV whenever the
: first CFV brought in too few responses?
It has, in fact, been the custom to put out a second CFV all the time.
Ron Dippold explicitly stated that he would issue them, so it is a
reasonable expectation on the part of the proponents concerned that they
would be issued.
Dan
--
rt...@cyberspace.com
J. Porter Clark
>Anyone think that maybe Ron Dippold's disappearance is related in some
>sordid way to the reappearance of Kent Paul Dolan? Paranoid minds
>want to know.
My guess was some sort of asbestos-related ailment. 8-)
But I hope not! Come back, Ron!
--
J. Porter Clark porter...@msfc.nasa.gov
NASA/MSFC Flight Data Systems Branch
George Herbert
vanc...@netcom.com (Henry van Cleef) writes:
>Christopher Stone <cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu> writes:
>>I was under the impression that the results of several votes conducted by
>>Ron Dippold were to be posted on news.announce.newgroups on Monday,
>>February 28th. I have not seen the results; is there another delay, or
>>was the original assumption incorrect?
>
>we haven't seen a thing here about the Dippold and the UVV situation.
>The whole situation appears to be one of complete collapse. I take it
>that the situation is so bad in Princeton that it is already March 3.
Please see Message-ID: <3j30no$e...@crl8.crl.com> (posted about 16 hrs
before your posting here) for the status. The summary is that we have not
heard from him yet. The Monday, Feb 27 date was given to me by Qualcomm HR
after some digging trying to figure out what happened. I do not know if
Ron has returned and is unable to post or mail due to workload or if he
is still out, nor why he was gone.
UVV is functioning as an organization at this time, and has been for nearly
two weeks now. Of the 30 oldest proposals (those whose RFD was on or
before Jan 19), 17 have UVV members assigned to run them (possibly 18,
I'm finalizing that one right now) and a number of them had the first
CFVs issued at the end of last week. I believe Tale is on hiatus for
the body of this week, or you'd have seen the most of the rest of
those 17 at the first CFV stage right now. We have two people watching
the uvv-c...@amdahl.com address, so that no one person has all the
critical organizational records.
Ron's disappearance was a bad thing, and nobody in UVV has suggested
differently or tried to understate the effects. But we did reorganize
since we realized what had happened, we are functioning now, and UVV
is slowly catching up on the backlog of votes which need to be done.
We've already taken basic steps to difuse organizational information
so that the coordinator isn't a single point of failure for the
organization and plan some more once we have time to think about what
to do.
I am trying to make sure that status reports get posted on a regular
basis (every 2 days or so until the backlog has been mostly dealt
with). There hasn't been a lot to say about Ron, but the rest of
the UVV process has not disappeared, and we're doin ok right now.
Terry Carroll
>For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
>service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
>work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
>thanks.
>
>For the current lapse of attention to his UVV chores, Ron Dippold
>has received insulting and inconsiderate complaints and a general
>lack of sympathy, or even tolerance from some (not all) readers of
>news.groups.
Hear, hear.
--
Terry Carroll | "Clearly, this invention provides the world's
Santa Clara, CA | first weapons simulator for use by motorists."
carr...@netcom.com | - U.S. Patent No. 5,314,371 (May 24, 1994)
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Henry van Cleef <vanc...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Ron Dippold has run hundreds of votes---the real problem is that
>everyone else who is involved with this voting process has succumbed to
>a "let George do it" ("George," in this case being Ron) mentality.
No, George is doing it _now_.
Much to his (and my) dismay.
When do I get my husband back?
--
? .?. ? Lee M.Thompson-Herbert KoX l...@crl.com
\0|0/ Chaos Monger l...@soda.berkeley.edu
Huh?- ( @ ) and l...@deepthought.armory.com
O Jill-of-all-Trades KD6WUR
Richard & Marsha
> jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu "Jay Maynard" writes:
>> This time, Chapman, you've gone too far.
>Thanks Jay, you said it for all of us.
>
>Please convey the good wishes of the vast majority of users when you
next
>contact Ron.
>--
>Chris Newport, The Netix Consultancy, Clevedon, Avon, UK.
There are more of us than you might imagine that genuinely
appreciate the character and strength that Ron has brought
to this otherwise chaotic usenet. Let's just all hope that
Ron is well and healthy. .............Richard
Jay Maynard
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
>was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
>to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
>it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
>hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
>needs a serious overhaul.
This time, Chapman, you've gone too far.
1) UVV fully recognizes that a change is necessary to avoid dependence on
one person. Those changes are being made, or have already been made, as I
post this message.
2) You completely fail to appreciate the mountain of work Ron Dippold put
into the UVV, not only in coordinating and assigning votes, but writing the
UseVote software nost UVV members use, and in setting up policies and
procedures UVV members follow to ensure that votes are run fairly and
competently.
3) We simply do not know why Ron dropped the ball. Until we do, claiming
that he "spat upon his duties" is gross hyperbole, and most likely just
plain wrong; why would someone who did so much hard work spit upon it all?
4) As a member of the UVV, I consider the phrase "UVV garbage" to be a
serious personal insult. I demand a posted apology, not only for myself, but
also the other members of the UVV who put in lots of work and only get abuse
and insults in return. You weren't around for the comp.bbs.powerbbs debacle,
but if you'd like to see just what kind of bullshit we have to put up with
in the name of running fair votes, I'll be happy to mail yout he 200K file
of abulse, flamage, false accusations, and obscenities I got in relation to
doing what most folks thought was the right thing.
In short, Chapman: go to hell. Please try not to take misc.activism.militia
with you, though...
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"All is strange and vague." "Are we dead?" "Or is this Ohio?"
-- Yakko and Dot Warner
Gedaliah Friedenberg
I will join in the chorous of "thank you"s to Ron for his past UVV
work.
BUT.... Anyone have any idea when he'll be back? Last rumor said he
would be back last monday (a week ago). Yet, no Ron!
Just wondering
Gedaliah
proponent, soc.culture.jewish.singles
Brennan Tennesen Price
jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <D4wn9...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>>This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
>>was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
>>to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
>>it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
>>hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
>>needs a serious overhaul.
>
>This time, Chapman, you've gone too far.
Thank you, Jay. Maybe he'll listen to you.
I want to elaborate on the items in Jay's post, but I should first say
that I spoke with Ron tonight. I'll let him tell his story to Usenet
himself, assuming he wishes to do so (suffice it to say it's a doozy,
and he did have a _damn_ good excuse for being away). He intends to be back
tomorrow (today where I sit as I write this).
>1) UVV fully recognizes that a change is necessary to avoid dependence on
>one person. Those changes are being made, or have already been made, as I
>post this message.
A big problem was that in the event of an emergency in which e-mail and
Usenet couldn't be utilized by a votetaker, there was no way for us to
get in touch with each other. This case has made clear that e-mail cannot
be relied on. In response, one UVV member posted his home telephone number
to our mailing list and said "call me collect in case of an emergency."
Most other members posted their numbers in response, and a list of
our phone numbers is being continually maintained, updated, and
circulated among us. We now know how to get in touch with each other by
phone--and in some instances, we have.
>2) You completely fail to appreciate the mountain of work Ron Dippold put
>into the UVV, not only in coordinating and assigning votes, but writing the
>UseVote software most UVV members use, and in setting up policies and
>procedures UVV members follow to ensure that votes are run fairly and
>competently.
Anyone who doesn't have UseVote who is interested in the voting process
ought to get a copy and play with it. It is so easy to use and format for
different situations and preferences that it's a real joy to use the
program to tabulate votes. I'm a chemist by training, and Fortran is
my language of choice, but even though I'm pretty much C-illiterate,
I can grok just enough to appreciate the work that went into writing the
source code.
>3) We simply do not know why Ron dropped the ball. Until we do, claiming
>that he "spat upon his duties" is gross hyperbole, and most likely just
>plain wrong; why would someone who did so much hard work spit upon it all?
As I said earlier--I spoke with Ron tonight. Chapman's characterization
is, indeed, just plain wrong. I'll leave it there--I only got a brief
sketch of the situation, and I think Ron should be permitted to tell the
story himself in whatever time or manner he chooses to do so.
>4) As a member of the UVV, I consider the phrase "UVV garbage" to be a
>serious personal insult. I demand a posted apology, not only for myself, but
>also the other members of the UVV who put in lots of work and only get abuse
>and insults in return.
I'm taking Chapman out of my killfile just long enough to see if this
happens, but I'm not holding my breath. The way I look at it, we're
the referees of Usenet. I officiate football (American and association)
and basketball and am quite used to abuse and insults in those fields.
It comes with the game.
>You weren't around for the comp.bbs.powerbbs debacle,
>but if you'd like to see just what kind of bullshit we have to put up with
>in the name of running fair votes, I'll be happy to mail you he 200K file
>of abuse, flamage, false accusations, and obscenities I got in relation to
>doing what most folks thought was the right thing.
Top that with deciphering strange e-mail addresses, investigating possible
duplicates, cleaning up messes caused by badly formatted ballots, trying
your best to avoid such messes by discouraging CFV reposting, and cleaning
up more messes when people refuse to listen, and this is a pretty trying
job. (By the way, if any rec.arts.movies folks have read this far, at least
two more people (one in each camp) have redistributed the ballot. I am
resoundingly unamused.)
>In short, Chapman: go to hell.
Amen, Jay.
>Please try not to take misc.activism.militia
>with you, though...
On second thought, Jay, speak for yourself. :)
--
"I'm Brennan T. Price, and I'm right, 'cause I'm the ref."
"It has never ceased to amaze me that people will lie and cheat in the
name of religions which forbid such behavior in no uncertain terms."
--AbdulraHman Lomax, news.groups, February 6, 1994.
Yngvar Foelling
> In article <3ijisr$k...@zip.eecs.umich.edu> t...@quip.eecs.umich.edu (Tom Galloway) writes:
> >If the vote does not have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it
> >revotes?
> If it couldn't get 2/3 support in the first few votes, then it
> probably wouldn't in a revote. There is some discussion about
> this case within UVV but at this point the consensus is no.
> >If the vote does have the 100 vote margin, but is not 2/3rds yes, it revotes?
> No, this would generally only happen in a case like 550 to 400 y/n,
> which if that ratio kept up wouldn't have 2/3ds in a revote.
I really disagree with this policy. A less-than-2/3 majority could be
because of a campaign to get NO votes, which would have a *greater*
effect than normal without the second CFV.
Please be consistent. If a vote fails after some errors in the
votetaking, you cannot *assume* that the result would have been the same
anyway.
--
Yngvar of the wry comebacks
yng...@vestnett.no
Vote YES for rec.arts.comics.elfquest!
Henry van Cleef
I nominate this comment for the ambassadorial award of 1995---it's
almost on a par with something that might come out of John Palmer.
Ron Dippold has run hundreds of votes---the real problem is that
everyone else who is involved with this voting process has succumbed to
a "let George do it" ("George," in this case being Ron) mentality.
Dippold's site was shaky-flaky in December, asleep most of January, and
hasn't been heard from since. The rest of the people involved with this
vote process simply sat on their hands until late February before waking
up to the small fact that they have a problem.
I hope that Ron is OK. Certainly he has taking a huge burden for some
time, and deserves thanks for having done as much as he has. The
criticism to offer here is to ask why it took so long for all the people
who might have done something to wake up to the fact that there was a
problem.
Mike Chapman
Jay Maynard <jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> wrote:
>In article <D4wn9...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>>This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
>>was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
>>to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
>>it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
>>hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
>>needs a serious overhaul.
>
>This time, Chapman, you've gone too far.
>
>1) UVV fully recognizes that a change is necessary to avoid dependence on
>one person. Those changes are being made, or have already been made, as I
>post this message.
Too bad there wasn't enough brainpower to figure it out BEFORE something
like this happened.
>2) You completely fail to appreciate the mountain of work Ron Dippold put
>into the UVV, not only in coordinating and assigning votes, but writing the
>UseVote software nost UVV members use, and in setting up policies and
>procedures UVV members follow to ensure that votes are run fairly and
>competently.
That's absolutely irrelevant to the current problem.
>3) We simply do not know why Ron dropped the ball. Until we do, claiming
>that he "spat upon his duties" is gross hyperbole, and most likely just
>plain wrong; why would someone who did so much hard work spit upon it all?
Perhaps he's in a coma, who knows. If this is the case, fine.
>4) As a member of the UVV, I consider the phrase "UVV garbage" to be a
>serious personal insult. I demand a posted apology, not only for myself, but
>also the other members of the UVV who put in lots of work and only get abuse
>and insults in return. You weren't around for the comp.bbs.powerbbs debacle,
>but if you'd like to see just what kind of bullshit we have to put up with
>in the name of running fair votes, I'll be happy to mail yout he 200K file
>of abulse, flamage, false accusations, and obscenities I got in relation to
>doing what most folks thought was the right thing.
Don't bother doing something you can't do right. We don't have
a choice but to use the UVV, and if it's so extremely fucked up
that stuff like this is going to happen, DON'T DO US ANYMORE
FAVORS. The only real problem with the UVV is the centralization,
and if that's being fixed, fine, that's all I was saying - it
obviously has some serious problems.
Yes, all it takes is ONE TREMENDOUS failure such as this to bring
discredit to an organization.
>In short, Chapman: go to hell. Please try not to take misc.activism.militia
>with you, though...
What does misc.activism.militia have to do with this? Maybe there was
just no way he could let anyone know why he needed to disappear - maybe
there are some damn good reasons, but if he's still conscious and hasn't
somehow managed to contact anyone, he's really screwed up, as far as I'm
concerned.
Joel K. Furr
I'm going to make myself flame-bait here, but I want to repeat an
assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
duties that people have come to expect or depend on. I am not referring
specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on. I am referring
instead to the attitude taken by many people toward Mike Chapman's
comments -- while Chapman's comments were asinine and indefensible, the
attitude that one must not ever criticize a volunteer who stops performing
a given task because, hey, that person's not being paid and worked hard in
the past and so forth is extremely illogical.
I have often criticized Brian Reid for failing to inform *anyone* as to
the reason why he ceased posting the Arbitron reports and why he refused
to return any email sent him inquiring as to why he continued (and appears
to have resumed so doing) including a major statistical handling error
which rendered his data valueless. And I have nearly always been pounded
on for daring to advance this point.
Simply put, if someone chooses to volunteer to perform a certain task,
and performs it with great panache for a long time, the mysteriously
stops and cannot be contacted, there *is* a problem. In Dippold's case,
it appears that something actually prevented him from letting us know,
but in other cases, the people have simply decided to clam up and say
nothing. This *is* wrong.
When someone can no longer find the time to perform a volunteer task,
they should say so. And if you point this out, you shouldn't have to
expect a mailbox full of flame.
Let me give you a couple of real-world analogies to the situation often
encountered on USENET of a volunteer vanishing and/or ceasing to
volunteer without saying why:
* the mother with a lot of free time who comes to her child's elementary
school to help with storytime and field trips. Her help is invaluable and
greatly appreciated. Then one day a field trip is held and she's not
there, despite having said she'd be there. And then she fails to show up
for her scheduled storytime, and her child simply says "I guess she
couldn't come" if you ask where Mommy is. And then next week Mommy
doesn't show up, and when the teachers call to see if she's okay, she
doesn't return the call. Things get difficult in that elementary school
class because there's no one there to perform storytime or help with field
trips. Then one day the teacher runs into Mommy in the grocery store and
Mommy says "Oh, I've just gotten tired of it, I thought I'd pay attention
to myself for a change." Teacher says "Why didn't you let us know?"
Mommy shrugs.
That's analogous to a lot of the vanished-volunteer situations here on
USENET, especially the Reid situation. If the job isn't done, it's not
the end of the world, but it's sure annoying to not know why. Did Mommy,
in the above example, *owe* her child's school an explanation of why she
wasn't showing up to read storytime to the children any more? No, not in
any legal sense, but it certainly would have saved a lot of people a lot
of confusion and bother to simply *know* that she wouldn't be coming in the
future.
Then there's another analogous situation:
* Your city has a Museums and Parades board composed of three local
citizens who review requests by citizens of the city as to usage of city
resources for parades and/or exhibitions in the city-owned art gallery.
Because they're not paid and generally don't give a fuck, the board keeps
putting off meetings and putting off meetings and don't return phone calls
and the Mayor's secretary simply says "Well, I'm sure if you keep calling
you'll get through, sir" and goes back to typing. Yep, they're volunteers
and they're not paid for their service but it sure is a bitch when they
stop doing the job.
Here in Durham it turned out that we had a Boxing Commission -- empowered
to govern any boxing matches held in the city -- which never responded to
inquiries and which was thought to be defunct by promoters of a boxing
match which said promoters wanted to hold. So the promoters held the
match anyway and when the Commissioners (three citizens who didn't get
paid for their time, etc. etc.) heard about it they used their authority
to halt the match before it could start, shut down the arena for the
night, and leave ticket-holders lined up outside. When they were bitched
at for doing this, you know what one of them said about why they hadn't
responded to the promoters' inquiries *before* the fight? Yep, you
guessed it: "hey, we're volunteers, we're not paid for doing this."
To sum up, there are two types of USENET volunteers: people who provide
convenient services that are appreciated by many, such as Arbitron, and
people who provide support for mandatory obligations that have to be done
in order to do certain things, like posting to moderated USENET groups or
getting newsgroup votes held. When *either* sort of volunteer cannot, due
to time constraints or burnout or other difficulties, cannot continue to
volunteer, it is simple courtesy so *say* so. Unfortunately, it seems to
be the practice on USENET to simply duck and run when you can't do a job
anymore, as we've seen in the cases of newsgroups like rec.arts.cinema and
soc.politics (whose moderators categorically ignored all inquiries as to
why they never approved any articles) and in the case of the Arbitron
rankings.
This is a shame.
I moderate comp.society.folklore and alt.folklore.suburban; on those
occasions when I get behind on approving articles, I *appreciate* nudges
from people who have come to expect that their articles will be posted in
a timely fashion. I don't erupt in rage because they're criticizing me, a
volunteer -- and likewise, I don't see why the veterans of the USENET wars
inevitably react like a pack of trained Rottweilers whenever someone
speaks up and says "wow, it really sucks that {insert volunteer here}
couldn't tell us what's going on."
--
<a href="http://www.danger.com">Joel Furr home page</a>
"Why? I haven't seen any complaints from the readers of alt.test that
the posting was inappropriate in their newsgroup." -- Seth Breidbart
Jay Maynard
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Too bad there wasn't enough brainpower to figure it out BEFORE something
>like this happened.
There' a very simple explanation here: Ron was doing such a fantastic job
that it simply didn't occur to us. You never appreciate what you have till
it's gone, after all.
>>2) You completely fail to appreciate the mountain of work Ron Dippold put
>>into the UVV, not only in coordinating and assigning votes, but writing the
>>UseVote software nost UVV members use, and in setting up policies and
>>procedures UVV members follow to ensure that votes are run fairly and
>>competently.
>That's absolutely irrelevant to the current problem.
At minimum, it earns him tolerance and respect, and is more than a little
defense against accusations that he "spat on the job". One thing you
apparently haven't figured out yet: Ron's credibility in this forum is far,
far higher than yours. Yours diminishes with every time you hit the
'f'ollowup key.
>Perhaps he's in a coma, who knows. If this is the case, fine.
Why jump to conclusions, then? Why earn the enmity of just about everyone
who's involved with the process - a process which you are in the middle of
yourself? Why not simply wait and see if such a criticism is justified?
>Don't bother doing something you can't do right. We don't have
>a choice but to use the UVV, and if it's so extremely fucked up
>that stuff like this is going to happen, DON'T DO US ANYMORE
>FAVORS. The only real problem with the UVV is the centralization,
>and if that's being fixed, fine, that's all I was saying - it
>obviously has some serious problems.
*sigh*
You just pissed away the last of your credibility with me.
You said a LOT more than that the centralization needed fixing - and that
didn't even need to be said, since it was announced that that was being
fixed a week ago.
>Yes, all it takes is ONE TREMENDOUS failure such as this to bring
>discredit to an organization.
Yes, all it takes is ONE COMPLETELY CLUELESS flame like this to bring
discredit to a person.
You don't see it, do you? UVV *STILL* has more credibility than you do.
>>In short, Chapman: go to hell. Please try not to take misc.activism.militia
>>with you, though...
>What does misc.activism.militia have to do with this?
Because the group creation process is inherently political, and you're
committing a political gaffe of the scale of a Presidential candidate
committing rape in front of a national television audience.
> Maybe there was
>just no way he could let anyone know why he needed to disappear - maybe
>there are some damn good reasons, but if he's still conscious and hasn't
>somehow managed to contact anyone, he's really screwed up, as far as I'm
>concerned.
What's wrong with giving him the benefit of the doubt? If your worst
assumptions did indeed come true, then you can flame with a clear
conscience.
Steve Bonine
> I'm going to make myself flame-bait here, but I want to repeat an
> assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
> it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
> duties that people have come to expect or depend on.
It is much more positive to work towards getting things back on an even keel
than to criticize the absent volunteer.
I am not referring
> specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
> me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
> him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on. I am referring
> instead to the attitude taken by many people toward Mike Chapman's
> comments -- while Chapman's comments were asinine and indefensible, the
> attitude that one must not ever criticize a volunteer who stops performing
> a given task because, hey, that person's not being paid and worked hard in
> the past and so forth is extremely illogical.
As you point out, Chapman's comments are asinine and indefensible. There is a
huge difference between pointing out that there's a job that is not getting
done and the type of irresponsible and negative blather that Chapman provided.
> Simply put, if someone chooses to volunteer to perform a certain task,
> and performs it with great panache for a long time, then mysteriously
> stops and cannot be contacted, there *is* a problem.
No arguement with this. But what is the appropriate response to the problem?
Does it help to flame the person who disappeared? No.
The response of the UVV to the current problem illustrates, I believe, a good
response. Once the problem was identified, a positive course of action was
plotted out and begun.
> When someone can no longer find the time to perform a volunteer task,
> they should say so. And if you point this out, you shouldn't have to
> expect a mailbox full of flame.
If you simply point this out, you shouldn't expect a mailbox full of flame. If
you point it out the way Chapman did, by flaming the individual who had
contributed countless hours to Usenet, then the flames are well deserved.
I agree with your basic premise that when a volunteer can no longer do the job
that they volunteered to do they should admit that. It doesn't always happen
that way. In fact, in years of experience with volunteers, I observe that it
is more common for people to just disappear. That's not ideal, but it's
reality.
> Let me give you a couple of real-world analogies to the situation often
> encountered on USENET of a volunteer vanishing and/or ceasing to
> volunteer without saying why:
>
> * the mother with a lot of free time who comes to her child's elementary
> school to help with storytime and field trips. Her help is invaluable and
> greatly appreciated. Then one day a field trip is held and she's not
> there, despite having said she'd be there. And then she fails to show up
> for her scheduled storytime, and her child simply says "I guess she
> couldn't come" if you ask where Mommy is. And then next week Mommy
> doesn't show up, and when the teachers call to see if she's okay, she
> doesn't return the call. Things get difficult in that elementary school
> class because there's no one there to perform storytime or help with field
> trips. Then one day the teacher runs into Mommy in the grocery store and
> Mommy says "Oh, I've just gotten tired of it, I thought I'd pay attention
> to myself for a change." Teacher says "Why didn't you let us know?"
> Mommy shrugs.
There is a problem here, but how much of it is due to the missing mommy? The
school came to depend upon one person, and when that one person wasn't
available, the school did not take any action. Yes, it would have been nice if
the mommy had stepped away gracefully, but blaming all the problems on this
failure to follow protocol isn't appropriate.
When you work with volunteers, you have to have a certain set of expectations.
Frankly, one of the things you have to plan for is that any volunteer may
disappear with no warning. Of course, this is no different than the planning
that you do "in the real world" with a professional paid staff.
Daniel Hartung
>Una Smith <una....@yale.edu> wrote:
>
>>For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
>>service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
>>work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
>>thanks.
>>
>>For the current lapse of attention to his UVV chores, Ron Dippold
>>has received insulting and inconsiderate complaints and a general
>>lack of sympathy, or even tolerance from some (not all) readers of
>>news.groups.
>
>Hear, hear.
Hear, hear, hear.
And, I might add, the UVV has showed themselves able to pick up
the pieces and move on from this minor calamity in a quite
professional and exceptional manner. Kudos to them as well!
--
Daniel A. Hartung | Support the new Arts/Humanities hierarchy!
dhar...@mcs.com | "I believe we can fly
dhar...@chinet.chinet.com | on the wings that we create"
http://www.mcs.net/~dhartung/ | -- Melissa Etheridge
Chris Newport
jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu "Jay Maynard" writes:
> This time, Chapman, you've gone too far.
Thanks Jay, you said it for all of us.
Please convey the good wishes of the vast majority of users when you next
contact Ron.
--
Chris Newport, The Netix Consultancy, Clevedon, Avon, UK.
In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded. ( big bang theory ).
Andrew Hackard
>Anyone think that maybe Ron Dippold's disappearance is related in some
>sordid way to the reappearance of Kent Paul Dolan? Paranoid minds
>want to know.
[Andrew drops his teeth. Andrew does not wear dentures.]
He Whose Name
Shall Not Be
Spoken Hath
Returned? Run
Away, Children,
Run Away Very
Fast, And Put
That Armadillo
DOWN!!!
[Imminent
Death
Of
The
Net
Predicted...
Film
Not
Yet
Available]
--
Andrew Hackard Go, go, gadget killfile!
Andrew Hackard
>When do I get my husband back?
Now there's a thought. Is Ron married?
[Suggestion to the UVV: Have a "domestic kidnapping" contingency plan in
place for emergencies just such as this. And, um (glancing at Lee) you
may want to hurry.]
Brennan Tennesen Price
mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) writes:
>In article <3jck1h$3...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu>,
>Jay Maynard <jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> wrote:
>>4) As a member of the UVV, I consider the phrase "UVV garbage" to be a
>>serious personal insult. I demand a posted apology, not only for myself, but
>>also the other members of the UVV who put in lots of work and only get abuse
>>and insults in return. You weren't around for the comp.bbs.powerbbs debacle,
>>but if you'd like to see just what kind of bullshit we have to put up with
>>in the name of running fair votes, I'll be happy to mail yout he 200K file
>>of abulse, flamage, false accusations, and obscenities I got in relation to
>>doing what most folks thought was the right thing.
>
>Don't bother doing something you can't do right. We don't have
>a choice but to use the UVV, and if it's so extremely fucked up
>that stuff like this is going to happen, DON'T DO US ANYMORE
>FAVORS. The only real problem with the UVV is the centralization,
>and if that's being fixed, fine, that's all I was saying - it
>obviously has some serious problems.
Although I wasn't expecting him to apologize, I took him out of my killfile
just long enough to see if he would.
Bad mistake on my part. He's still worthless.
Re-*plonk*
I'm filling up space, I'm filling up space,
I'm filling up space so my newsreader will post this article
even though less than 50% of the lines are mine.
I continue to fill up space.
Christopher Bradford Stone
>This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
>was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
>to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
>it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
>hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
>needs a serious overhaul.
First off, Mike, Ron Dippold's duties are entirely *voluntary*.
Therefore, by definition Ron cannot "neglect" such duties, as he is not
obligated to attend to such "duties.
Secondly, the UVV's power is NOT "in the hands of a few or one." Other
members of the UVV have taken control of the situation in Ron'd absence.
Thirdly, you neglect to balance your criticism against all the good that
the UVV has accomplished. The whole point of the UVV is that it is
*neutral* in votetaking, and therefore enjoys some credibility.
Is this the kind of "activism" we can expect on misc.activism.militia?
--
////// // // ////// // ////// Christopher B. Stone
// ////// ///// // ///
// // // // // // /// "Consensus is the negation
////// // // // // // ////// of leadership." -Margaret Thatcher
Anne Bennett
gt0...@prism.gatech.edu (Brennan Tennesen Price) writes:
>
> Thank you, Jay. Maybe he'll listen to you.
I doubt he'll listen to anyone. However, after those offensive remarks,
perhaps he'll be in enough killfiles that no one will listen to him,
either. :-)
> I want to elaborate on the items in Jay's post, but I should first say
> that I spoke with Ron tonight. I'll let him tell his story to Usenet
> himself, assuming he wishes to do so (suffice it to say it's a doozy,
I'm curious enough to hope he'll tell us, but in any case, I'm very glad to
read that he's OK -- or at least OK enough to be going back to work. I'd
like to add my thanks to Ron and the other UVV volunteers for their hard
work in difficult circumstances.
Anne.
--
Ms. Anne Bennett an...@alcor.concordia.ca (514) 848-7606
Computing Services, Concordia University, Montreal QC, Canada H3G 1M8
(Administrator for Concordia University mail relay and news transfer)
Joel K. Furr
assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on. I am referring
instead to the attitude taken by many people toward Mike Chapman's
comments -- while Chapman's comments were asinine and indefensible, the
attitude that one must not ever criticize a volunteer who stops performing
a given task because, hey, that person's not being paid and worked hard in
the past and so forth is extremely illogical.
I have often criticized Brian Reid for failing to inform *anyone* as to
the reason why he ceased posting the Arbitron reports and why he refused
to return any email sent him inquiring as to why he continued (and appears
to have resumed so doing) including a major statistical handling error
which rendered his data valueless. And I have nearly always been pounded
on for daring to advance this point.
Simply put, if someone chooses to volunteer to perform a certain task,
and performs it with great panache for a long time, then mysteriously
stops and cannot be contacted, there *is* a problem. In Dippold's case,
it appears that something actually prevented him from letting us know,
but in other cases, the people have simply decided to clam up and say
nothing. This *is* wrong.
When someone can no longer find the time to perform a volunteer task,
they should say so. And if you point this out, you shouldn't have to
expect a mailbox full of flame.
Let me give you a couple of real-world analogies to the situation often
encountered on USENET of a volunteer vanishing and/or ceasing to
volunteer without saying why:
* the mother with a lot of free time who comes to her child's elementary
school to help with storytime and field trips. Her help is invaluable and
greatly appreciated. Then one day a field trip is held and she's not
there, despite having said she'd be there. And then she fails to show up
for her scheduled storytime, and her child simply says "I guess she
couldn't come" if you ask where Mommy is. And then next week Mommy
doesn't show up, and when the teachers call to see if she's okay, she
doesn't return the call. Things get difficult in that elementary school
class because there's no one there to perform storytime or help with field
trips. Then one day the teacher runs into Mommy in the grocery store and
Mommy says "Oh, I've just gotten tired of it, I thought I'd pay attention
to myself for a change." Teacher says "Why didn't you let us know?"
Mommy shrugs.
That's analogous to a lot of the vanished-volunteer situations here on
to time constraints or burnout or other difficulties, continue to
Mike Chapman
Jay Maynard <jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> wrote:
>In article <D50w0...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>>Too bad there wasn't enough brainpower to figure it out BEFORE something
>>like this happened.
>
>There' a very simple explanation here: Ron was doing such a fantastic job
>that it simply didn't occur to us. You never appreciate what you have till
>it's gone, after all.
If you're not too bright maybe.
>>>2) You completely fail to appreciate the mountain of work Ron Dippold put
>>>into the UVV, not only in coordinating and assigning votes, but writing the
>>>UseVote software nost UVV members use, and in setting up policies and
>>>procedures UVV members follow to ensure that votes are run fairly and
>>>competently.
>>That's absolutely irrelevant to the current problem.
>
>At minimum, it earns him tolerance and respect, and is more than a little
>defense against accusations that he "spat on the job". One thing you
>apparently haven't figured out yet: Ron's credibility in this forum is far,
>far higher than yours. Yours diminishes with every time you hit the
>'f'ollowup key.
His past history has nothing to do with the thing he has just done.
Either it was right or wrong, on its own merits.
As to credibility, mine must be higher still than all of these
"me toos" and "plonk"ers, with nothing of value to say or think,
and ever so little actual comprehension of what I'm saying and
of obligations in general.
>>Perhaps he's in a coma, who knows. If this is the case, fine.
>
>Why jump to conclusions, then? Why earn the enmity of just about everyone
>who's involved with the process - a process which you are in the middle of
>yourself? Why not simply wait and see if such a criticism is justified?
It was a gamble.
>>Don't bother doing something you can't do right. We don't have
>>a choice but to use the UVV, and if it's so extremely fucked up
>>that stuff like this is going to happen, DON'T DO US ANYMORE
>>FAVORS. The only real problem with the UVV is the centralization,
>>and if that's being fixed, fine, that's all I was saying - it
>>obviously has some serious problems.
>
>*sigh*
>You just pissed away the last of your credibility with me.
I bet I started out with a lot.
>You said a LOT more than that the centralization needed fixing - and that
>didn't even need to be said, since it was announced that that was being
>fixed a week ago.
# This is just proof that this UVV garbage needs a serious overhaul.
I still think it does. I want non-UVV votetakers.
>>Yes, all it takes is ONE TREMENDOUS failure such as this to bring
>>discredit to an organization.
>
>Yes, all it takes is ONE COMPLETELY CLUELESS flame like this to bring
>discredit to a person.
Come now, completely clueless? Yeah, I guess there's just no
foundation to anything I say.
>You don't see it, do you? UVV *STILL* has more credibility than you do.
I haven't let anyone down or failed my duties.
>>>In short, Chapman: go to hell. Please try not to take misc.activism.militia
>>>with you, though...
>>What does misc.activism.militia have to do with this?
>
>Because the group creation process is inherently political, and you're
>committing a political gaffe of the scale of a Presidential candidate
>committing rape in front of a national television audience.
Politics doesn't mean a lack of ethics and a lack of careful consideration
of the issues over the superficial activities of the participants. Well,
to you it obviously does.
>> Maybe there was
>>just no way he could let anyone know why he needed to disappear - maybe
>>there are some damn good reasons, but if he's still conscious and hasn't
>>somehow managed to contact anyone, he's really screwed up, as far as I'm
>>concerned.
>
>What's wrong with giving him the benefit of the doubt? If your worst
>assumptions did indeed come true, then you can flame with a clear
>conscience.
My conscience is clear either way. I enjoy taking extremely unpoular
positions when they are in fact highly defensible - finding those
defenses is the point of the game, and the only real challenge
in debate.
We'll see what he has to say for himself.
Ted Holden
>In article <3jfnd0$9...@news.duke.edu>,
>Joel K. Furr <jf...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>>I'm going to make myself flame-bait here, but I want to repeat an
>>assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
>>it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
>>duties that people have come to expect or depend on. I am not referring
>>specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
>>me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
>>him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on. I am referring
>>instead to the attitude taken by many people toward Mike Chapman's
>>comments -- while Chapman's comments were asinine and indefensible, the
>>attitude that one must not ever criticize a volunteer who stops performing
>>a given task because, hey, that person's not being paid and worked hard in
>>the past and so forth is extremely illogical.
>That is certainly a reasonable position. I think that the point is this:
>when someone is a volunteer, that person ought to be given a little more
>leeway in completing tasks than if he were under contract. That is, the
>*presumption* ought to be that volunteers are doing a decent job unless
>proven otherwise.
You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct one of
these people, then the slack will be taken up.
At this point, my store of good will and patience with this entire process is
exhausted and I'm not sure what it would take to restore it. A number of people
have put more than a little bit of work into trying to create talk.catastrophism
and we're being asked to take a hell of a lot on faith at this point.
Ted Holden
Jim Jewett
In article <medved.794593732@access1>,
Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
>automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct one
hmm... abduction by space aliens would be a good excuse, and explain why he
hadn't been able to tell anyone.
>trying to create talk.catastrophism
>Ted Holden
Yes, I can see where that might worry the aliens.
-jJ
Greg Berigan
>u...@doliolum.biology.yale.edu (Una Smith) writes:
>>@ () writes:
>>>Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this.
>>>It represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
>>>will have a good explanation when he gets back.
>talking about "removing" Ron from his
>"position" is a bit silly. His "position" is quite simple: he has
>volunteered (remember what UVV stands for?) to count votes. Nobody
>appointed him, nobody can remove him, nobody has to listen to him if
>they don't want to. If anyone else chooses to volunteer to count
>votes, that's fine too.
He ceased to become a "volunteer" the moment that it became required to
use the UVV for all proposals, and running the vote for your own
proposal became banned.
In effect, the UVV has become the UVC (Usenet Vote-taking Committee).
What was a distributed system became centralized. What irregularities
that were caused before ended up with a revote on the group. Now we see
a complete halt in the voting process for all groups with only a few
getting attention at a time.
Being a volunteer means accepting responsibility and accountablilty for
what you volunteer for. If he can't do that, he should voluntarily step
down or take steps to ensure that this never happens again, and if he
can't or won't do that, authorize proposers to run their own votes again.
--
----' gber...@cse.unl.edu (Greg Berigan)
------,
,-|-, "Some say he's the devil himself." "I heard he was _
----' '-' a giant chicken!" -- Highlander Boo: The Chickening d b CC
Mike Chapman
F Andrew McMichael <amcm...@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
>Greg Berigan (gber...@cse.unl.edu) wrote:
>
>: He ceased to become a "volunteer" the moment that it became required to
>: use the UVV for all proposals, and running the vote for your own
>: proposal became banned.
>
>like. In fact, you can even create any group you
>like, without a vote. Nobody *has* to listen to
>Ron, or the UVV. It's just *easier* for sysadmins to
>have a central, volunteer, group do it.
>
>But in the end, *nothing* is required.
This Usenet nihilism is no more useful than the usual variety. The
assumption is that we would like to work within the rules and
structure that has been created, but that part of the structure
is flawed.
Mike Chapman
>
>: This Usenet nihilism is no more useful than the usual variety. The
>: assumption is that we would like to work within the rules and
>: structure that has been created, but that part of the structure
>: is flawed.
>
>'required' for any group. A group of volunteers counts votes for people
>who want to use them , and virtually every sysadmin on the face of the
>earth listenss to the UVV because it's the easiest thing to do.
You STILL don't understand. Obviously since every sysadmin on the
face of the earth enforces these rules, they ARE requirements. I
MUST use the UVV as much as I MUST use Tale to approve my posts,
and go through the proper group creation procedure.
>So if you don't like it, run the vote yourself. Then
>newgroup it. You might as well, because at this point, any vote
>with your name attatched which appears in news.* is going
>to fail miserably, no matter what the group is about. That's
>reality too.
How about I work to change the system rather than trying to
ignore it, which is impossible, since the UVV has the force of Usenet
law behind it.
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
>>Joel K. Furr <jf...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
[Joel's excellent comments deleted.]
>>That is certainly a reasonable position. I think that the point is this:
>>when someone is a volunteer, that person ought to be given a little more
>>leeway in completing tasks than if he were under contract. That is, the
>>*presumption* ought to be that volunteers are doing a decent job unless
>>proven otherwise.
>
>You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
>automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct
>one of these people, then the slack will be taken up.
Is that Ted Holden I hear volunteering to pay for the disk space required,
to modify the voting software to deal with posting and e-mail problems,
etc etc etc?
>At this point, my store of good will and patience with this entire process is
>exhausted and I'm not sure what it would take to restore it.
Do you want your newsgroup or not? If your answer is "no", then kindly
shut the fuck up and go away. If your answer is "yes", then you need
to work with the UVV to get the problems fixed.
>A number of people
>have put more than a little bit of work into trying to create
>talk.catastrophism
>and we're being asked to take a hell of a lot on faith at this point.
See above. If you want your newsgroup, you have to work within the
rules, even if you don't like them. If you don't want to follow the
rules, go talk to alt.config.
--
I have to post. Buddha insists on a warm computer.
Christopher Bradford Stone
Joel K. Furr <jf...@acpub.duke.edu> wrote:
>I'm going to make myself flame-bait here, but I want to repeat an
>assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
>it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
>duties that people have come to expect or depend on. I am not referring
>specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
>me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
>him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on. I am referring
>instead to the attitude taken by many people toward Mike Chapman's
>comments -- while Chapman's comments were asinine and indefensible, the
>attitude that one must not ever criticize a volunteer who stops performing
>a given task because, hey, that person's not being paid and worked hard in
>the past and so forth is extremely illogical.
That is certainly a reasonable position. I think that the point is this:
when someone is a volunteer, that person ought to be given a little more
leeway in completing tasks than if he were under contract. That is, the
*presumption* ought to be that volunteers are doing a decent job unless
proven otherwise.
Where Mr. Chapman missed the mark was, first, in assuming that the UVV's
entire work was centered on Ron Dippold -- as the past few days have
shown, it plainly is not -- and secondly, in being so rude to Mr.
Dippold, who has not yet given an explanation of his disappearance.
Mike Chapman
Christopher Bradford Stone <cbs...@tucson.princeton.edu> wrote:
>In article <D4wn9...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>[Brought to you by the proponent of misc.activism.militia]....
>
>>This is a gross, blatant, undeniable neglect of his duties. Power
>>was placed into a central location and the person responsible failed
>>to respect the position he was in, in any way. He spat upon
>>it, proving, ultimately, the fallacy of placing power in the
>>hands of a few or one. This is just proof that this UVV garbage
>>needs a serious overhaul.
>
>First off, Mike, Ron Dippold's duties are entirely *voluntary*.
>Therefore, by definition Ron cannot "neglect" such duties, as he is not
>obligated to attend to such "duties.
Chris, in America everyone's job is voluntary. If you accept a position
you accept its obligations, whether you're paid or not. Drop this
line of opposition, it's stupid and without foundation.
>Secondly, the UVV's power is NOT "in the hands of a few or one." Other
>members of the UVV have taken control of the situation in Ron'd absence.
After substantial delay.
>Thirdly, you neglect to balance your criticism against all the good that
>the UVV has accomplished. The whole point of the UVV is that it is
>*neutral* in votetaking, and therefore enjoys some credibility.
Yeah, it's a good idea. It needs some reworking I think.
>Is this the kind of "activism" we can expect on misc.activism.militia?
Uhm, I guess so. I don't know what aspects you're twiddling with in
your "mind" so I can only guess what answer is right to give you...
F Andrew McMichael
: You STILL don't understand. Obviously since every sysadmin on the
: face of the earth enforces these rules, they ARE requirements. I
: MUST use the UVV as much as I MUST use Tale to approve my posts,
: and go through the proper group creation procedure.
Nope. Its you who isn't getting it. They aren't requirements. It's
just easy. Peter Da Silva has said several times that he's run votes
using a non-UVV process and it's worked.
: How about I work to change the system rather than trying to
: ignore it, which is impossible, since the UVV has the force of Usenet
: law behind it.
How about learning a little more about the system you are whining about?
There is no USENET law. Why change a system which works. It's failed
*once*, and even then, it hasn't really failed. The world, and
USENET, don't come to a screeching halt simply because
no RFD's or CFV's go out for a month or so. The other volunteers took
up the slack, and the system goes on. It works.
I've been semi-lurking in this group for 4 years now, and I've seen
people like you pop out of the woodwork every couple of months.
You whine and complain about some perceived injustice, piss everyone
off by claiming that a system you don't really understand is broken
and then hound everyone to try to change something that they are
pretty happy with. Meanwhile your group fails because nobody likes
you, by far the dumbest reason for it not to pass. But you wont
understand that on e either.
See ya.
--
amcm...@gmu.edu
co-moderator soc.history.war.world-war-ii
GMU History Dept. WWW- http://gopher.gmu.edu/other/history
If your history department has a WWW homepage, e-mail me with the URL.
Mike Chapman
Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>In article <medved.794593732@access1>,
>Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
>>automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct
>>one of these people, then the slack will be taken up.
>
>Is that Ted Holden I hear volunteering to pay for the disk space required,
>to modify the voting software to deal with posting and e-mail problems,
>etc etc etc?
Ok, maybe the UVV is just too broken and it would cost too much to
fix. We need to give some alternatives then.
>>At this point, my store of good will and patience with this entire process is
>>exhausted and I'm not sure what it would take to restore it.
>
>Do you want your newsgroup or not? If your answer is "no", then kindly
>shut the fuck up and go away. If your answer is "yes", then you need
>to work with the UVV to get the problems fixed.
Is this a threat of some sort? You aren't in the UVV are you??
>>A number of people
>>have put more than a little bit of work into trying to create
>>talk.catastrophism
>>and we're being asked to take a hell of a lot on faith at this point.
>
>See above. If you want your newsgroup, you have to work within the
>rules, even if you don't like them. If you don't want to follow the
>rules, go talk to alt.config.
We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
it.
F Andrew McMichael
: We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
: the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
: it.
Once again, nobody is forcing you to use it. Run your own
RFD and CFV. Posts them in news.groups and anywhere else
you like. Tally the votes, post the results. Create your
group, crawl back to your hole. If your group passes, perhaps
some sites won't pick it up, but then again, it may be a
resounding success, you may blaze a new trail. People might speak of
you and Spaf in the same senetence. Think of the
possibilities- a new religion, devoted to worshipping you.
Well probably not. But your group might get created, and we'd be
rid of your pointless whining. Best of both worlds, eh?
F Andrew McMichael
: He ceased to become a "volunteer" the moment that it became required to
: use the UVV for all proposals, and running the vote for your own
: proposal became banned.
When was this? You can run your own vote anytime you
like. In fact, you can even create any group you
like, without a vote. Nobody *has* to listen to
Ron, or the UVV. It's just *easier* for sysadmins to
have a central, volunteer, group do it.
But in the end, *nothing* is required.
--
Daniel Hartung
[blather about duties and obligations deleted]
>
>We'll see what he has to say for himself.
Amazing! A sensible comment at last.
F Andrew McMichael
: This Usenet nihilism is no more useful than the usual variety. The
: assumption is that we would like to work within the rules and
: structure that has been created, but that part of the structure
: is flawed.
You missed the point. The reality is that no vote is
'required' for any group. A group of volunteers counts votes for people
who want to use them , and virtually every sysadmin on the face of the
earth listenss to the UVV because it's the easiest thing to do.
So if you don't like it, run the vote yourself. Then
newgroup it. You might as well, because at this point, any vote
with your name attatched which appears in news.* is going
to fail miserably, no matter what the group is about. That's
reality too.
--
Dick Menninger
> ==========Henry van Cleef, 3/4/95==========
>
> In article <D4vH6...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
> >Clearly Ron Dippold needs to be removed from his position for this. It
> >represents an incredible level of irresponsibility. Perhaps he
> >will have a good explanation when he gets back.
> >Citizen Chapman, Esq.
> >Sic Semper Tyrannis Live Free or Die! Don't tread on me!
>
> almost on a par with something that might come out of John Palmer.
>
> Ron Dippold has run hundreds of votes---the real problem is that
> everyone else who is involved with this voting process has succumbed to
> a "let George do it" ("George," in this case being Ron) mentality.
>
> Dippold's site was shaky-flaky in December, asleep most of January, and
> hasn't been heard from since. The rest of the people involved with this
> vote process simply sat on their hands until late February before waking
> up to the small fact that they have a problem.
>
> I hope that Ron is OK. Certainly he has taking a huge burden for some
> time, and deserves thanks for having done as much as he has. The
> criticism to offer here is to ask why it took so long for all the people
> who might have done something to wake up to the fact that there was a
> problem.
> --
> ===================================================================
> Hank van Cleef The Union Institute History of Science
> E-mail vanc...@netcom.com or vanc...@tmn.com
> ===================================================================
>
>
I got an automatic response on 2/12/95 to a vote sent
on 2/9/95. So the site was alive then.
Good Day
Dick Menninger
Dick.Menninger.DaytonOH.ATTGIS.COM
Cameron Laird
Matt Austern <ma...@physics.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>In article <3j7ijf$o...@news.ycc.yale.edu> u...@doliolum.biology.yale.edu (Una Smith) writes:
.
.
.
>> For years of remarkably dedicated, professional, and responsible
>> service, in the face of sometimes extremely laborious and tedious
>> work, Ron Dippold has received no more than an occasional note of
>> thanks.
.
.
>Agreed. And one more point: talking about "removing" Ron from his
.
.
.
>Personally, I'm not volunteering. I counted the votes for one
>newgroup creation proposal (sci.physics.research), and that was
>enough.
.
.
.
Me, too, to the extent that I think it's worth re-posting these words.
--
Cameron Laird http://starbase.neosoft.com/~claird/home.html
cla...@Neosoft.com +1 713 267 7966
cla...@litwin.com +1 713 996 8546
Steve Summit
It's worth considering another aspect of volunteer psychology:
guilt. When you've committed to do something for no recompense,
it's because it's something you want to do and feel needs doing.
So when you temporarily can't, it's hard to say anything, because
that might sound like you don't want to do it any more. So you
keep quiet, and hope that you have time to do it again soon, and
that no one notices, or something. (I'm speaking in general
terms; obviously Ron Dippold's case was a bit more complicated.)
The other significant aspect of the current volunteer votetaking
scheme is of course that its use is mandatory. Defenders of the
current guidelines will have to accept the fact that complaints
from disgruntled users are an absolute certainty, as Citizen
Chapman so effectively demonstrates. (It may be that there would
be even *more* complaints if use of the UVV weren't mandatory;
I can't say.)
Steve Summit
s...@eskimo.com
He Ain't Heavy He's My Glenn
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
>the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>it.
The "rules" suck and demand? Are they sentient?
Pax ex machina,
Glenn
......................................................................
g-car...@uchicago.edu, if you must know
<A HREF="http://www.digimark.net/wraith/">Phone Homey the Page!</A>
......................................................................
Tom Haapanen
mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) writes:
> As to credibility, mine must be higher still than all of these
You have *ZERO* credibility in this group. In fact, all you have in
this group is occasional amusement value at your antics.
"Leader of men", indeed. Heh.
--
[ /tom haapanen -- to...@metrics.com -- software metrics inc -- waterloo, ont ]
[ "language design is not a cure for social problems." -- bjarne stroustrup ]
Colin Douthwaite
: Clearly you're just experiencing another miocranial infarction.
Er...did you mean microanal perhaps ? :-) :-)
Bye,
Ted Holden
>In article <medved.794763111@access1> (9 Mar 1995 10:40:38 -0500), Ted
>Holden(med...@access1.digex.net) said...
>>
>>The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
>>can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
>>or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>marketplace of ideas.
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>So, tell us again why you wanted the group moderated.
You get back to what Limbaugh says when asked why he doesn't allow
liberals equal time on his show; his answer is "I AM equal time.
Likewise, talk.catastrophism would have BEEN equal time, and anybody who
has ever watched talk.origins for more than a week knows precisely what
is meant and why I would like to see t.o/Ediacara have to comepete in the
marketplace of ideas here on an equal basis, which currently it does not.
The funny thing is, you would have been able to post to
talk.catastrophism. Alt.catastrophism... who knows; you might not
even be one of the fortunate ones to get it.
______
[ \ ^^^^^^^^^^ / ]
\ \ / /---
| \ \ / / |
_..-'( / _0 | 0_ \ )`-.._
./'. '||\\. / \ _ / \ .//||` .`\
'.|'.'||||\\|.. _______ / \__/ \__/ \ _____..|//||||`.`|.`
/'.||'.||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||.`||.`\.
Splifford the bat says: Always remember
A mind is a terrible thing to waste; especially on an evolutionist.
Just say no to narcotic drugs, alcohol abuse, and corrupt ideological
doctrines.
Herman Rubin
>: We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
>: the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>: it.
>Once again, nobody is forcing you to use it. Run your own
>RFD and CFV. Posts them in news.groups and anywhere else
>you like. Tally the votes, post the results. Create your
>group, crawl back to your hole. If your group passes, perhaps
>some sites won't pick it up, but then again, it may be a
>resounding success, you may blaze a new trail. People might speak of
>you and Spaf in the same senetence. Think of the
>possibilities- a new religion, devoted to worshipping you.
>Well probably not. But your group might get created, and we'd be
>rid of your pointless whining. Best of both worlds, eh?
It is only recently that the UVV was set up, but this was to prevent
problems with the proposers running their votes, which was the previous
setup. It was not required, but it was usual. And I do not have any
problems with Tale going on vacation, as long as someone else takes
on the job. But I do have problems with him making all the decisions,
or even with system administrators doing so. I have no problems with
system administrators and news administrators counting votes.
And you know darn well that no group in the USENET hierarchy is going
to be carried at many places if Tale does not announce it in n.a.n.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!a.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
David Empey
mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) wrote:
> In article <dgempey-0803...@applsci-mac01.ucsc.edu>,
> David Empey <dge...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
> >In article <D54nM...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
> >mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) wrote:
> >
> >> In article <jandaD5...@netcom.com>,
> >> >
> >> >Do you want your newsgroup or not? If your answer is "no", then kindly
> >> >shut the fuck up and go away. If your answer is "yes", then you need
> >> >to work with the UVV to get the problems fixed.
> >>
> >> Is this a threat of some sort?
> >
> >I guess English must not be Citizen Chapman's first language.
>
> Well, there is no clear meaning that can be taken from your
^^^^
> poorly worded paragraph.
Not only in English not Citizen Chapman's first language, it would
appear that he can't read attributions, either.
> What you would seem to be implying
> is that his opposition to the UVV system is a threat to
> the passage of his vote.
And doesn't know what the subject of the thread is, either.
> Has he refused to cooperate with
> you? You didn't answer my question - are you in the UVV?
> How is he not working with the UVV in bringing up the issues
> of concern?? Why are you telling this guy to fuck off if
> he has decided he doesn't want his newsgroup anymore??? What
> does that have to do with the problems with the UVV?
Get a clue, Citizen Chapman.
> --
> Citizen Chapman, Esq.
> Sic Semper Tyrannis Live Free or Die! Don't tread on me!
--
-Dave
Russell Stewart
Holden(med...@access1.digex.net) said...
>
>The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
>can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
>or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>marketplace of ideas.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So, tell us again why you wanted the group moderated.
--
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/|
/_____________________________________________________________/ |
| Russell Stewart | Albuquerque | "Practice random and | |
| dia...@rt66.com | New Mexico | senseless acts." | /
|__________________|___________________|______________________|/
"Tel Aviv- An Israeli housewife's fight with a stubborn cockroach
put her husband in the hospital with burns, a broken pelvis and
broken ribs, the Jerusalem Post newspaper reported yesterday."
phil reed
>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>and more active than a number of existing groups. Common sense indicates
>that more people would become interested and participate as the word got
>out.
Provisionally true, depending on the group.
>
>The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
>can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
>or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
>comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
>marketplace of ideas.
Here's where you fall down. You don't know WHY I voted know - you are only
assuming a reason. In my case, your assumption happens to be WRONG. So,
if you're wrong for my vote, how many others are you wrong about?
'NO' votes serve as more than just a mechanism for disapproval of the
contents of a group. This is an unfortunate fact of the voting mechanism.
If you hang out on news.groups or news.admin.misc, you will often
see discussion of trying to fix up the voting (usually by making it more
unwieldly). No concensus has been reached yet.
Quit making global assumptions; they will only get you into trouble.
--
...phil
Jay Maynard
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>His past history has nothing to do with the thing he has just done.
>Either it was right or wrong, on its own merits.
However, it *does* earn him tolerance as to his motivations, and in
particular makes comments like "spat upon his duties" all the more
outrageous.
>As to credibility, mine must be higher still than all of these
>"me toos" and "plonk"ers, with nothing of value to say or think,
>and ever so little actual comprehension of what I'm saying and
>of obligations in general.
You must be reading a different group than I am, then.
>> Why not simply wait and see if such a criticism is justified?
>It was a gamble.
If you choose to gamble with your credibility, you deserve to lose it.
>>You just pissed away the last of your credibility with me.
>I bet I started out with a lot.
You did, actually; I was one of a few news.groups regulars defending you and
misc.activism.militia when you first launched it.
>I want non-UVV votetakers.
If you think UVV is that broken, take advantage of the net's open nature,
and generate some competition for it.
>Come now, completely clueless? Yeah, I guess there's just no
>foundation to anything I say.
In this discussion, that's becoming more and more apparent.
>>You don't see it, do you? UVV *STILL* has more credibility than you do.
>I haven't let anyone down or failed my duties.
No; you've just been completely clueless about the role UVV plays, and has
played, in the Usenet group creation process in the past year or so. Being
publicly clueless tends to be hard on your credibility.
>>Because the group creation process is inherently political, and you're
>>committing a political gaffe of the scale of a Presidential candidate
>>committing rape in front of a national television audience.
>Politics doesn't mean a lack of ethics and a lack of careful consideration
>of the issues over the superficial activities of the participants. Well,
>to you it obviously does.
Nope...I voted yes on misc.activism.militia, despite my increasing nausea at
your status as proponent, because I think it's a Good Idea. However, I am
also a firm believer in the Second Amendment, and that it is under attack
by the government of the US; folks who do not hold those beliefs as strongly
as I are more likely to take their opinion of you personally into account
when deciding whether, and how, to vote.
>My conscience is clear either way. I enjoy taking extremely unpoular
>positions when they are in fact highly defensible - finding those
>defenses is the point of the game, and the only real challenge
>in debate.
You sound like a high school debater who enjoys running what we called
"squirrel cases": affirmative cases so far out in left field that nobody's
researched meterial with which to shoot them down, so they have to rely on
their wits.
>We'll see what he has to say for himself.
You should have said this about a week ago.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"All is strange and vague." "Are we dead?" "Or is this Ohio?"
-- Yakko and Dot Warner
Brett J. Vickers
>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>and more active than a number of existing groups.
Are you sure? Take your posts for example. I don't think I've ever
seen you write one that would pass talk.catastrophism's moderation
policy.
Like a number of other howler monkeys, I would have voted for (or, at
the very least, not voted against) talk.catastrophism had it not been
for the completely unnecessary moderation policy. Keep this in mind
when you try to bring the newsgroup up for another vote in six months.
--
Brett J. Vickers bvic...@ics.uci.edu
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~bvickers/home.html
Larry Smith
Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>
>I'm going to make this my last word on the subject. Basically, aside from
>every other problem I've seen with this process, I can see no logical
>reason why negative votes should come into play at all.
>
>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>that more people would become interested and participate as the word got
>out.
I see you must be using the new newsposter. That control-shift-5
combination _really_ saves typing, doesn't it? Nothing like using
macros for those bits of text that need to be posted OVER AND OVER
AND OVER AGAIN LIKE A DAMNED BUSTED PHONOGRAPH!
--
Larry Smith --- My opinions only. lar...@zk3.dec.com/lar...@io.com.
pentagon.io.com is Illuminati OnLine, SJ Games, _not_ "the" Pentagon, please.
--
"Wealth is crime enough to him that's poor." - Sir John Denham (1615-1669)
David Empey
> In article <jandaD5...@netcom.com>,
> >
> >Do you want your newsgroup or not? If your answer is "no", then kindly
> >shut the fuck up and go away. If your answer is "yes", then you need
> >to work with the UVV to get the problems fixed.
>
> Is this a threat of some sort?
I guess English must not be Citizen Chapman's first language.
-Dave Empey (dge...@cats.ucsc.edu)
Chris Woodward (PSY)
>mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU (Mike Chapman) writes:
>
>..........
>
>>We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
>>the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>>it.
>>--
>>Citizen Chapman, Esq.
>>Sic Semper Tyrannis Live Free or Die! Don't tread on me!
>
>
Oh, if only that were true...
>every other problem I've seen with this process, I can see no logical
>reason why negative votes should come into play at all.
Bandwidth, bandwidth, bandwidth.
>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>and more active than a number of existing groups. Common sense indicates
>that more people would become interested and participate as the word got
>out.
Or not. There may not be *that* many people who have even *heard* of
Velikovsky, let alone believe in his doctrines. And if you wanted to
attract people, why didn't you make it an unmoderated group?
>The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
>can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
>or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
>comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
>marketplace of ideas.
Both P. T. Barnum and H. L. Mencken have made the observation that nobody
ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public,
so your "marketplace of ideas" shibboleth is misplaced. Before you can
traffic in ideas, Ted, you have to *understand* them correctly. As in
some of the t.o newbies (and some returning veterans like you), many peo-
ple with college degrees don't know squat about evolution, except for a
caricature drawn by people with an ideological ax to grind.
--
[ Chris Woodard, M.A. ]
[ Anheuser-Busch Chair of Computational Theology ]
[ University of Ediacara ]
[ "Open-mindedness is not synonymous with blind gullibility." ]
Orc
>like. In fact, you can even create any group you
>like, without a vote. Nobody *has* to listen to
>Ron, or the UVV. It's just *easier* for sysadmins to
>have a central, volunteer, group do it.
I don't know if easier is really the best word. Safer, perhaps,
from accusations of campaign fraud, though it does have the downside
of being accused of being part of City Hall whenever the slightest
problem occurs.
____
david parsons \bi/ o...@pell.com
\/
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>In article <dgempey-0803...@applsci-mac01.ucsc.edu>,
>David Empey <dge...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>is that his opposition to the UVV system is a threat to
>you? You didn't answer my question - are you in the UVV?
>How is he not working with the UVV in bringing up the issues
>of concern?? Why are you telling this guy to fuck off if
>he has decided he doesn't want his newsgroup anymore??? What
>does that have to do with the problems with the UVV?
I guess Citizen Chapman has problems reading.
Or perhaps he thinks Keith Cochran and David Empey are the same
person.
--
"...and most of the time, I'm happy also."
Mike Chapman
Well, there is no clear meaning that can be taken from your
poorly worded paragraph. What you would seem to be implying
is that his opposition to the UVV system is a threat to
the passage of his vote. Has he refused to cooperate with
you? You didn't answer my question - are you in the UVV?
How is he not working with the UVV in bringing up the issues
of concern?? Why are you telling this guy to fuck off if
he has decided he doesn't want his newsgroup anymore??? What
does that have to do with the problems with the UVV?
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>F Andrew McMichael <amcm...@osf1.gmu.edu> wrote:
>>: This Usenet nihilism is no more useful than the usual variety. The
>>: assumption is that we would like to work within the rules and
>>: structure that has been created, but that part of the structure
>>: is flawed.
>>
>>You missed the point. The reality is that no vote is
>>'required' for any group. A group of volunteers counts votes for people
>>who want to use them , and virtually every sysadmin on the face of the
>>earth listenss to the UVV because it's the easiest thing to do.
>
>face of the earth enforces these rules, they ARE requirements.
No, Mike, it is you who STILL doesn't understand. "every sysadmin
on the fact of the earth" doees not follow the results of the UVV.
In fact, I would say that if you include all the UUCP sites, probably
less than 20% of the sysadmins actually follow the results of all
the votes the UVV run. The other 80% decide for themselves what
groups they want to propogate based on their own needs.
>I
>MUST use the UVV as much as I MUST use Tale to approve my posts,
>and go through the proper group creation procedure.
No you don't. Send out a newsgroup creation message. It's easy to
do, and requires nothing more than your user account to log in on,
and a basic netnews setup.
>>So if you don't like it, run the vote yourself. Then
>>newgroup it. You might as well, because at this point, any vote
>>with your name attatched which appears in news.* is going
>>to fail miserably, no matter what the group is about. That's
>>reality too.
>
>How about I work to change the system rather than trying to
>ignore it, which is impossible, since the UVV has the force of Usenet
>law behind it.
What "Usenet law"? Nobody ever ran a vote for the linux.* groups,
but they exist all over the world. Same with bunches of newsgroups
and hierachies I could point to.
--
"...it is often thus, Frodo."
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>>You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
>>>automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct
>>>one of these people, then the slack will be taken up.
>>
>>Is that Ted Holden I hear volunteering to pay for the disk space required,
>>to modify the voting software to deal with posting and e-mail problems,
>>etc etc etc?
>
>Ok, maybe the UVV is just too broken and it would cost too much to
>fix.
It's not "too broken", nor would it cost "too much". But just as Cnews
and INN were pretty much written and given away "for free", and just
as trn and the other newsreaders pretty much are bundled with your
news software, and just as the current voting software is written
and maintained by somebody pretty much for free, if Ted wants to
change it, he's either going to have to volunteer and do it himself,
or convince somebody else to volunteer and do it.
>We need to give some alternatives then.
I notice you have yet to give any alternatives. So far all you've done
is whine.
>>>At this point, my store of good will and patience with this entire
>>>process is exhausted and I'm not sure what it would take to restore it.
>>
>>Do you want your newsgroup or not? If your answer is "no", then kindly
>>shut the fuck up and go away. If your answer is "yes", then you need
>>to work with the UVV to get the problems fixed.
>
>Is this a threat of some sort? You aren't in the UVV are you??
I have no affiliation with the UVV, group-advice, group-mentors,
UUNET, or anybody else. I'm me.
>>>A number of people
>>>have put more than a little bit of work into trying to create
>>>talk.catastrophism
>>>and we're being asked to take a hell of a lot on faith at this point.
>>
>>See above. If you want your newsgroup, you have to work within the
>>rules, even if you don't like them. If you don't want to follow the
>>rules, go talk to alt.config.
>
>We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change.
Then offer suggestions as to why and where the rules suck, and what
changes should be implemented to "fix" them. Go ahead. We're listening.
>If
>the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>it.
You have yet to show that the UVV is broken, or that there are problems
with the group creation process for "Big 7" newsgroups. Even if you
can show problems, the "net" is not going to throw out a process that
works 99% of the time in favor of nothing. You need to come up with
a process that works 99.1+ percent of the time first.
Wes Morgan
Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>>You don't need to be Albert einstein to figure out that the votes ought to
>>>automatically be sent to a backup site and that if the space aliens abduct
>>>one of these people, then the slack will be taken up.
>>
>>Is that Ted Holden I hear volunteering to pay for the disk space required,
>>to modify the voting software to deal with posting and e-mail problems,
>>etc etc etc?
>
>Ok, maybe the UVV is just too broken and it would cost too much to
>fix. We need to give some alternatives then.
Gee, does "investing some of my own time and effort" equivalence to
"cost too much to fix?" Now *that's* an interesting logical leap.
>We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
>the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>it.
Hey, Mike, how about doing us a favor and:
- take a few days to think about it,
- write up a serious, non-flame critique of the way UVV works, from
top to bottom, and
- recommend some changes?
All I've seen is "Ron's gone - my CFV is stalled - this sucks." This
is hardly good material upon which to base changes. Ted Holden's idea
of auto-forwarding vote copies to a backup site was the first construc-
tive piece of advice I've seen in this entire discussion. (I don't think
that would work well, for several reasons, but it *was* a constructive
suggestion.) UVV is trying (very hard, mind you) to develop a disaster
recovery plan, but it's rather difficult to do when everyone involved is
a volunteer - and spread across the globe.
One has the right to criticize, but *constructive* criticism works much
more effectively.
--Wes
--
Wes Morgan --- mor...@engr.uky.edu | "[...]the book is evil. I would recommend
University of Kentucky Engineering | burning it, except you would have to buy
http://s.ecc.engr.uky.edu/~morgan/ | one first." -- Bob Metcalfe, on Canter &
Are you still there, Vicki R.? | Siegel's book, in _InfoWorld_, 2/20/95
F Andrew McMichael
: It is only recently that the UVV was set up, but this was to prevent
: problems with the proposers running their votes, which was the previous
: setup. It was not required, but it was usual. And I do not have any
: problems with Tale going on vacation, as long as someone else takes
: on the job. But I do have problems with him making all the decisions,
: or even with system administrators doing so.
If you've got problems with system administrators making all
the decisions, then you need to close your account. That's part
of the job.
: I have no problems with
: system administrators and news administrators counting votes.
: And you know darn well that no group in the USENET hierarchy is going
: to be carried at many places if Tale does not announce it in n.a.n.
I know darn well that it *may* not be carried. But if someone cvan come
up with another plan [like Peter's] to run votes, then by all means
do it. Or, again, run your own. But this whining and sniping
at Ron for being out is totally uncalled for and has really crossed
the line of decency.
Barry M. Schlesinger
appropriate to that group. I've eliminated the personal alt. group.
Any way this is more a general comment than a direct reply.
In article <3jfn1s$9...@news.duke.edu>, jf...@acpub.duke.edu (Joel K. Furr) writes...
>
>I'm going to make myself flame-bait here, but I want to repeat an
>assertion that I've made in the past, and defend it once again. To wit:
>it is *not* improper or rude to criticize volunteers who cease to perform
>duties that people have come to expect or depend on. I am not referring
>specifically to Ron Dippold, as his past record of excellent service leads
>me to believe that something bad must have happened that didn't even give
>him a chance to speak up and explain what was going on....
[I assume someone who's intersted in this thread has read the rest of
the article.]
Joel Furr presented a couple of analogies. I have another. You have
a lunch appointment with an old and trusted friend. Said friend shows
up an hour late. Now you've known the person so long that you assume
that there is a good reason they were late. Nevertheless, you expect
an explanation, e. g., "I got caught in an impossible traffic jam
behind a major accident." So I think Ron Dippold should at least give
us an idea of what happened. It doesn't have to be in great detail,
for example, something like "family emergency" would do.
not speaking for NASA, GSFC, etc.
Barry Schlesinger
Ted Holden
..........
>We think the rules suck as it stands and are demanding a change. If
>the UVV cannot be fixed, then people shouldn't be forced to use
>it.
>--
>Citizen Chapman, Esq.
>Sic Semper Tyrannis Live Free or Die! Don't tread on me!
I'm going to make this my last word on the subject. Basically, aside from
every other problem I've seen with this process, I can see no logical
reason why negative votes should come into play at all.
Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
and more active than a number of existing groups. Common sense indicates
that more people would become interested and participate as the word got
out.
The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
marketplace of ideas.
.............................................
Sentenced to die, by electrocution,
Raoul don' panic, he got de solution:
"Why die like a rat, when I can die like a man,
an fry my OWN brain, befo' dem puercos can..."
an so Raoul light up, an he stroke de stroke,
an he smoke de spliff, what no man aint smoked,
an he fry his mind, on dat' bad pollution,
an den he start talkin' bout' EVOLUTION...
(from "The Conversion of Raoul Jose-Domingo Tokovar,
Ediacara/Toromanurian Drug Lord to Evolutionism")
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>But I do have problems with him making all the decisions,
>or even with system administrators doing so.
Perhaps some clarification is in order here, Herman.
In fact, I think some clarification from you about this statement
is very necessary.
Mike Chapman
Jay Maynard <jmay...@admin5.hsc.uth.tmc.edu> wrote:
>In article <D52v6...@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>,
>Mike Chapman <mi...@chimera.med.Virginia.EDU> wrote:
>>His past history has nothing to do with the thing he has just done.
>>Either it was right or wrong, on its own merits.
>
>However, it *does* earn him tolerance as to his motivations, and in
>particular makes comments like "spat upon his duties" all the more
>outrageous.
I can think of *very* few circumstances under which it would just
be impossible to notify anyone, which was the basis for my
saying that. Maybe I'm way out of line and there truly was something
that took Ron's mind and body away from any possibility of letting
anyone know. We'll have to wait and see...
>>> Why not simply wait and see if such a criticism is justified?
>>It was a gamble.
>
>If you choose to gamble with your credibility, you deserve to lose it.
Or gain it.
>>>You just pissed away the last of your credibility with me.
>>I bet I started out with a lot.
>
>You did, actually; I was one of a few news.groups regulars defending you and
>misc.activism.militia when you first launched it.
I didn't have any credibility with you then, you just didn't know me.
>>I want non-UVV votetakers.
>
>If you think UVV is that broken, take advantage of the net's open nature,
>and generate some competition for it.
I'd rather fix the UVV so that something like this can never happen
again. That will solve the problem.
>>I haven't let anyone down or failed my duties.
>
>No; you've just been completely clueless about the role UVV plays, and has
>played, in the Usenet group creation process in the past year or so. Being
>publicly clueless tends to be hard on your credibility.
Clue me in then. You're long on flame and short on hard information.
>>Politics doesn't mean a lack of ethics and a lack of careful consideration
>>of the issues over the superficial activities of the participants. Well,
>>to you it obviously does.
>
>Nope...I voted yes on misc.activism.militia, despite my increasing nausea at
>your status as proponent, because I think it's a Good Idea. However, I am
>also a firm believer in the Second Amendment, and that it is under attack
>by the government of the US; folks who do not hold those beliefs as strongly
>as I are more likely to take their opinion of you personally into account
>when deciding whether, and how, to vote.
And that shows a lack of ethics and careful consideration of the
issues, as I said.
>>My conscience is clear either way. I enjoy taking extremely unpoular
>>positions when they are in fact highly defensible - finding those
>>defenses is the point of the game, and the only real challenge
>>in debate.
>
>You sound like a high school debater who enjoys running what we called
>"squirrel cases": affirmative cases so far out in left field that nobody's
>researched meterial with which to shoot them down, so they have to rely on
>their wits.
Interesting story, but I don't see how it applies.
>>We'll see what he has to say for himself.
>
>You should have said this about a week ago.
I think I did, among other things.
John Stanley
Dan Thies <rt...@cyberspace.com> wrote:
>Well, Ron made a firm commitment that a second CFV definitely would be
>posted. Since there is no choice but to use the UVV, I don't see why a
>seconf CFV should be considered optional.
Because the guidelines say it is.
>So if a vote is 100-1 in favor of a group, and the second CFV was never
>issued, you'd say it's a lack of support.
Yes. Only 100 people chose to vote for it. A "vote" needs 100 more yes
than no to pass. If we bend the guidelines to say "well, 100-1 is close
enough", then why not "95-1 is close enough"? Why not "50-1"?
Now, if the process started with the CFV, then you might have a point.
It doesn't. The process starts with the RFD. That alerts everyone that
something is going on, and that, IF they are interested, they should
pay attention.
>Some people don't vote until
>the second CFV because they never saw the first one. You may live at
>your terminal,
Hardly. I just pay attention to what is going on. I make the choice to read
the groups that deal with group formation. Others choose not to. Their
choice.
>but some people take vacations, etc.
Some people don't see the second CFV because they are on vacation,
etc. Should we invalidate any vote where someone claims they were on
vacation? Should there be an immediate revote for any group that loses
if anyone claims that they didn't see the CFV for whatever reason? How
about revotes for winning groups if opponents claim they didn't see the
CFV?
If there is a problem with news.announce.newgroups being expired too
rapidly at a site, talk to the admin there. If there is going to be a
vote on something you are interested in, don't decide to ignore news
for 4 weeks. Ask someone to mail a copy of the CFV to you. Or get a
copy from one of the archives -- rtfm.mit.edu is one, I believe. Or
get one from the UVV itself.
>Well, you can take anything to extremes,
And a simple test to apply to any idea is to see what happens at the
extremes. Now, I don't particularly call going from 2 to 3 to be an extreme.
YMMV.
>but this isn't what they're
>doing. The response from the other UVV volunteers has been measured and
>reasonable.
I think my response has been very "measured" and reasonable, as well. I
don't agree with the assumptions that a missing, optional CFV is
serious, or is a cause for a group to lose. If you think that that opinion
is unreasonable or unmeasured, that is your problem.
>Was there a particular group on that list that you opposed?
I have no idea what groups are on the list. I have no idea what the results
of the votes were. My opposition is to the claim that the process was flawed
because something that isn't required wasn't done. If you start expecting
revotes because THIS certain optional thing wasn't done this time, what
other optional things will be used as an excuse next time?
>: How do you tell the dfifference between those that failed because an
>: optional second CFV wasn't issued and those that didn't have support?
>
>That was stated already, fairly clearly.
No, it was't. "It failed and there wasn't a second CFV" is not a clear
delineation of why it failed. Lots of votes fail even with second CFV.
If you want to assume that every vote that failed that didn't get a
second CFV was only because there wasn't a second CFV, then how do you
defend stopping at 2? Why shouldn't someone claim that they should get
an immediate revote because there was no 3rd, or 4th? "If only there
were enough CFV posted, my pet group would have won. I want an
immediate revote because there weren't 23 CFV posted!"
>There was something seriously wrong in the vote process. Ron Dippold
>promised a second CFV and didn't deliver.
That is not serious. He didn't have to deliver. There was no requirement for
him to.
>If I had been able to choose another vote-taker that would issue a
>CFV, I would have.
In other words, YOU have a vested interest in getting a revote on some
group because you don't want to accept that there wasn't support enough for
it to pass. Now, which group might that be?
>No choice
>available for proponents here, though. UVV has a monopoly on the voting,
>and I'm just glad we don't have such a heavy-handed approach from them as
>we'd get from you.
If you lose your vote, you lost your vote. Making up excuses and
blaming other people for it won't cut it. Your vote didn't lose because
the vote taker screwed up. It failed because people saw the CFV and
didn't vote for it. It failed because people saw the CFV and voted
against it. It failed because people who may be claiming great interest
in the group now didn't choose to pay attention when it counted. It
failed because of the voters, not the process. Blame them.
Relying on an optional part of any process is setting yourself up for
failure. That is a lesson you can use in life, it isn't applicable just to
USENET.
Russell Stewart
In article <medved.794763111@access1> (9 Mar 1995 10:40:38 -0500), Ted
Holden(med...@access1.digex.net) said...
>
>I'm going to make this my last word on the subject. Basically, aside from
>every other problem I've seen with this process, I can see no logical
>reason why negative votes should come into play at all.
>
>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>and more active than a number of existing groups. Common sense indicates
>that more people would become interested and participate as the word got
>out.
>
>The system as it stands is ossified if two or three hundred individuals
>can shut the door on anything innovative which they find threatening
>or contrary to their own tastes or, as in this case, simply do not feel
>comfident in their own ability to compete on an equal basis in the
>marketplace of ideas.
This all comes from the man who has just spent the last 2 weeks or
so arguing to us that everything (including science) should operate
on "majority rule".
Well, Ted, the majority didn't want your newsgroup, and now you're
bitching about it. How do you expect anyone to take you seriously
if you aren't even willing to accept the consequences of your own
philosophies? You are a hypocrite, and worse than that, you're an
annoying, whiny brat. I pity your mother that she had to raise you.
Glenn Durden
>In article <medved.794763111@access1>,
>Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>
>>I'm going to make this my last word on the subject. Basically, aside from
>I see you must be using the new newsposter. That control-shift-5
>combination _really_ saves typing, doesn't it? Nothing like using
>macros for those bits of text that need to be posted OVER AND OVER
>AND OVER AGAIN LIKE A DAMNED BUSTED PHONOGRAPH!
>--
>Larry Smith --- My opinions only. lar...@zk3.dec.com/lar...@io.com.
I wonder how many times we will hear Teds "last word" on the subject?
Chris Heiny
>Ted Holden <med...@access1.digex.net> wrote:
>>Two hundred people voted for talk.catastrophism. If even one fourth of
>>those were to participate in such a group, the group would be bigger
>>and more active than a number of existing groups.
>
>Are you sure? Take your posts for example. I don't think I've ever
>seen you write one that would pass talk.catastrophism's moderation
>policy.
>
>Like a number of other howler monkeys, I would have voted for (or, at
>the very least, not voted against) talk.catastrophism had it not been
>for the completely unnecessary moderation policy. Keep this in mind
>when you try to bring the newsgroup up for another vote in six months.
I originally intended to vote in support of the group, but Ted's
constant spew of hate first moved me to abstain, and finally to
vote no. I see no reason why Ted should have a personalized forum
in which to vomit forth his insults, innuendo and disinformation
free from contradiction and challenge.
I can see plenty of reasons to have an open Vist/catastrophism newsgroup.
Chris
--
Christopher Heiny |"In the summer waters, the Anomalocaris
Professor of Bizarre Theories | basks in the warmth, dreaming of
Offther-Hocking Chair | contingent futures, of the futures that
of Lunar Influences | might be or might not be, of great
University of Ediacara | civilizations, mighty structures, works
| of art and literature, of the culture
| built by the many limbed creatures that
| will crawl from the sea, of their
| deeds, their loves, their wisdom -
| an entire society dedicated to the
| sound of the universal "O". Serene
| in its vision, it passes Pikaia to
| to munch a trilobite."
| 'Song of Anomalocaris' vol 2,
| canto 8, verses 36-37
Jens A. Hage
: As to credibility, mine must be higher still than all of these
: "me toos" and "plonk"ers, with nothing of value to say or think,
: and ever so little actual comprehension of what I'm saying and
: of obligations in general.
Not really surprisingly, you missed the point. Let me spell it out: Ron Dippold
has many more people backing him than you have backing you. Ergo, more people
give him credibility. Got it now?
: >*sigh*
: >You just pissed away the last of your credibility with me.
: I bet I started out with a lot.
Got that right...
: >You said a LOT more than that the centralization needed fixing - and that
: >didn't even need to be said, since it was announced that that was being
: >fixed a week ago.
: # This is just proof that this UVV garbage needs a serious overhaul.
: I still think it does. I want non-UVV votetakers.
Presumably that you know really well...
: >You don't see it, do you? UVV *STILL* has more credibility than you do.
: I haven't let anyone down or failed my duties.
You haven't tried to do anything to help aside from bitching. Shut up or put
up.
: Politics doesn't mean a lack of ethics and a lack of careful consideration
: of the issues over the superficial activities of the participants. Well,
: to you it obviously does.
Earth to Major Chapman. Come in Major Chapman...
Jens "Earth control?" Hage
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
>up with another plan [like Peter's] to run votes, then by all means
>do it. Or, again, run your own. But this whining and sniping
>at Ron for being out is totally uncalled for and has really crossed
>the line of decency.
I just thought this needed to be said again.
--
"...forever's as far, as I'll go."
Herman Rubin
>Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>But I do have problems with him making all the decisions,
>>or even with system administrators doing so.
>Perhaps some clarification is in order here, Herman.
>In fact, I think some clarification from you about this statement
>is very necessary.
The decisions about news groups should essentially all be made by
the READERS. Administrators should be charged with the job of seeing
that the decision process by the policy makers is carried out, and not
with making policy.
I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where the
administrators are there to serve the users, not to restrict them in
any way other than what the lack of facilities forces.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hru...@stat.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)
{purdue,pur-ee}!a.stat!hrubin(UUCP)
Peter da Silva
Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where the
>administrators are there to serve the users, not to restrict them in
>any way other than what the lack of facilities forces.
I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where Usenet
and related facilities are peripheral to the job at hand, and administrators
are there to support the users in performing that job, not to provide
whatever random personal group it was started this whole discussion.
I'm sure Usenet is not the primary responsibility of the Purdue statistics
department.
Let's put it this way... do you handle backup policy by holding a vote
among the users as to when backups will be done?
Herman Rubin
Peter da Silva <pe...@bonkers.taronga.com> wrote:
>In article <3jv3di$1b...@b.stat.purdue.edu>,
>Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where the
>>administrators are there to serve the users, not to restrict them in
>>any way other than what the lack of facilities forces.
>I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where Usenet
>and related facilities are peripheral to the job at hand, and administrators
>are there to support the users in performing that job, not to provide
>whatever random personal group it was started this whole discussion.
>I'm sure Usenet is not the primary responsibility of the Purdue statistics
>department.
The Purdue statistics department does not even have a news administrator,
but Purdue University does.
The news groups received are for the use of faculty and students, and of
some other relevant university people. The groups are technical groups,
which are of direct interest, and groups for recreational and other
societal purposes, which are things which Purdue provides in other ways
as well.
>Let's put it this way... do you handle backup policy by holding a vote
>among the users as to when backups will be done?
Nor would you have a vote about the file structure for the news articles,
or which machines will have the direct involvement. But if backups were
done in such a way as to tie up computers for two hours a day, I am sure
that there would be protests to all involved. If backups were not done
often enough, and files were lost, there would be screams. In both of
these cases, unless the administrators could make strong cases that the
technological problems prevented doing better, they would be instructed
to cooperate with the users.
Having news articles bears more of a similarity to having backups, having
operating systems, having compilers, having tools, etc.
Wesley Dane Scott
John Stanley <sta...@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU> wrote:
>In article <3iuqj2$6...@case.cyberspace.com>,
>Dan Thies <rt...@cyberspace.com> wrote:
>>Well, Ron made a firm commitment that a second CFV definitely would be
>>posted. Since there is no choice but to use the UVV, I don't see why a
>>seconf CFV should be considered optional.
>
>Because the guidelines say it is.
Weren't the guidelines developed before the UVV became mandatory
and therefore the meaning of "a second CFV may be posted"
actually parse as: when you the proponent of the group deem
that you need more publicity because the group is failing
you have permission to post a second copy of the CFV, but
do not post a third.
Rather than: the UVV votetaker can arbitrarily decide whether
1 or 2 copies of the CFV shall be posted.
I agree with Dan, if Ron made a firm commitment then the second
CFV is not optional. In fact the "CFV Questionnaire for
Proponents" states: "We will take care of all vote counting
and will take care of all the details and postings involved
in the CFV, including two postings of the CFV, a bounce ack,
and a final result." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The questionnaire was last updated 2/22/95.
Matt Austern
> Weren't the guidelines developed before the UVV became mandatory
> and therefore the meaning of "a second CFV may be posted"
> actually parse as: when you the proponent of the group deem
> that you need more publicity because the group is failing
> you have permission to post a second copy of the CFV, but
> do not post a third.
I'm not at all sure that mandatory use of UVV is a very good idea. In
fact, it really doesn't fit very well with the rest of the Guidelines;
much of what's in them make little or no sense in light of mandatory
UVV voting. If we really want to keep this mandatory UVV business, a
lot of the Guidelines will have to be rewritten.
I think the old ways were better: proponents of a newsgroup are
responsible for arranging that a vote will happen. They may use UVV
or not, depending on what they think is more sensible. They should
keep in mind, though, that any serious charges of irregularity or
dishonesty will delay or prevent the creation of their group, and that
the best way to prevent those charges is to use UVV. Just like
group-advice, use of UVV should be strongly recommended but not
required.
If a newgroup vote is completely straightforward and uncontroversial,
if the proponents' integrity is unquestioned, and if the proponents
don't expect any irregularities, then UVV just seems rather like
overkill. It's a decision that the group proponents ought to make,
with full knowledge of the risks involved.
Partly this is a matter of general principle (I prefer informal
solutions whenever possible), and partly I'm disturbed by the huge
backlog of CFVs that we've got right now. If some of the votes could
be handled by the group proponents, then things could be cleared up
quickly. As it is we've got a big mess on our hands, and there just
aren't enough people in UVV to handle it.
--
--matt
Keith Justified And Ancient Cochran
Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>Keith "Justified And Ancient" Cochran <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>In article <3jnpuu$e...@b.stat.purdue.edu>,
>>Herman Rubin <hru...@b.stat.purdue.edu> wrote:
>>>But I do have problems with him making all the decisions,
>>>or even with system administrators doing so.
>
>>Perhaps some clarification is in order here, Herman.
>
>>In fact, I think some clarification from you about this statement
>>is very necessary.
>
>The decisions about news groups should essentially all be made by
>the READERS. Administrators should be charged with the job of seeing
>that the decision process by the policy makers is carried out, and not
>with making policy.
How nice that you feel I should not be able to control the machine
that I paid for with my cold hard cash. Perhaps you would like to
buy it from me? It will only cost you $40,000.
>I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where the
>administrators are there to serve the users, not to restrict them in
>any way other than what the lack of facilities forces.
I believe that most of the readers belong to organizations where
somebody else is paying for the hardware, net.feed, and is paying
the sysadmin to control the machine according to their wishes.
--
"Even if the whole world has forgotten,
the song remembers when."
Russell Stewart
Holden(med...@access1.digex.net) said...
>
>You get back to what Limbaugh says when asked why he doesn't allow
>liberals equal time on his show; his answer is "I AM equal time.
IOW, he admits to being biased and closed-minded towards liberal points
of view. He admits that he's not even willing to give them a chance.
He certainly has that right under the constitution, and I would fight
for that right. But don't expect me to have any respect for him, or
you.
>Likewise, talk.catastrophism would have BEEN equal time,
Well, if you're comparing yourself to Rush Limbaugh, you won't get
any disagreement here. Especially in the matter of what I mentioned
above.
>and anybody who
>has ever watched talk.origins for more than a week knows precisely what
>is meant
Again, most of the people who have been watching t.o. understand your
reasons much better than you want them to.
>and why I would like to see t.o/Ediacara have to comepete in the
>marketplace of ideas here on an equal basis, which currently it does not.
Bullshit. The internet is a free and democratic forum; you have your
own Web page, but the majority decided they didn't want you to have
a moderated newsgroup to spew your misinformation onto. As I
mentioned elsewhere, you are the one who has been arguing that
everything in our society should be decided by majority rule. Are you
reversing that opinion now that the majority is against you?
Big surprise.
>The funny thing is, you would have been able to post to
>talk.catastrophism.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm not willing to place my trust in you until
you can prove yourself worthy of it on an unmoderated forum. I
suggest you start by living up to the standards you set for the
talk.catastrophism moderation policy.
>Alt.catastrophism... who knows; you might not
>even be one of the fortunate ones to get it.
And why not talk.catastrophism UNmoderated? Again, you are
twisting the truth to try and swing the argument in your favor.
--
/~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~/|
/_____________________________________________________________/ |
| Russell Stewart | Albuquerque | What? | |
| dia...@rt66.com | New Mexico | Is it my hair? | /